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+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mechanism of Life, by Stéphane Leduc
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Mechanism of Life
+
+Author: Stéphane Leduc
+
+Translator: W Deane Butcher
+
+Release Date: October 15, 2010 [EBook #33862]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MECHANISM OF LIFE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Garcia, James Nugen, Keith Edkins and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="10" style="background-color: #ccccff;">
+<tr>
+<td style="width:25%; vertical-align:top">
+Transcriber's note:
+</td>
+<td>
+A few typographical errors have been corrected. They
+appear in the text <span class="correction" title="explanation will pop up">like this</span>, and the
+explanation will appear when the mouse pointer is moved over the marked
+passage.<br /><br />
+
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<h3>THE MECHANISM OF LIFE</h3>
+
+ <div class="figcenter" style="width:71%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig0.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig0.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 0." title="Fig. 0." /></a>
+ Osmotic Productions. [<i>Frontispiece</i>
+ </div>
+
+<p class="cenhead">THE</p>
+
+<h1>MECHANISM OF LIFE</h1>
+
+<p class="cenhead"><span class="scac">BY</span></p>
+
+<h2><span class="sc">Dr. Stéphane LEDUC</span></h2>
+
+<p class="cenhead"><span class="scac">PROFESSEUR À L'ÉCOLE DE MÉDECINE DE NANTES</span></p>
+
+<p class="cenhead"><span class="scac">TRANSLATED BY</span></p>
+
+<h3>W. DEANE BUTCHER</h3>
+
+<p class="cenhead"><span class="scac">FORMERLY PRESIDENT OF THE RÖNTGEN SOCIETY, AND OF THE</span><br />
+<span class="scac">ELECTRO-THERAPEUTICAL SECTION OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF MEDICINE</span></p>
+
+ <p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+ <div class="contents">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <p class="hg3">"La nature a formé, et forme tous</p>
+ <p>les jours les êtres les plus simples par</p>
+ <p>génération spontanée." <span class="sc">Lamarck.</span></p>
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="stanza">
+ </div>
+ </div>
+
+ <p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+ <div class="figcenter" style="width:9%;">
+ <a href="images/pmark.png"><img style="width:100%" src="images/pmark.png"
+ alt="Printers mark." title="Printers mark." /></a>
+ </div>
+<h3>NEW YORK</h3>
+
+<h2>R<span class="gsp">&nbsp;</span>E<span class="gsp">&nbsp;</span>B<span class="gsp">&nbsp;</span>M<span class="gsp">&nbsp;</span>A<span class="gsp">&nbsp;</span>N C<span class="gsp">&nbsp;</span>O<span class="gsp">&nbsp;</span>M<span class="gsp">&nbsp;</span>P<span class="gsp">&nbsp;</span>A<span class="gsp">&nbsp;</span>N<span class="gsp">&nbsp;</span>Y</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="sc">Herald Square Building</span><br />
+<span class="sc">141-145, West 36th Street</span></h3>
+
+ <div class="poem">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <p><i>First Impression March 1911</i></p>
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <p><i>Second Impression January 1914</i></p>
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <p><i>Printed in England</i></p>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+
+ <p><br style="clear:both" /></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p><!-- Page vii --><span class="pagenum"><a name="pagevii"></a>{vii}</span></p>
+
+<h3>TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE</h3>
+
+ <p>Professor Leduc's <i>Théorie Physico-chimique de la Vie et Générations
+ Spontanées</i> has excited a good deal of attention, and not a little
+ opposition, on the Continent. As recently as 1907 the Académie des
+ Sciences excluded from its <i>Comptes Rendus</i> the report of these
+ experimental researches on diffusion and osmosis, because it touched too
+ closely on the burning question of spontaneous generation.</p>
+
+ <p>As the author points out, Lamarck's early evolutionary hypothesis was
+ killed by opposition and neglect, and had to be reborn in England before
+ it obtained universal acceptance as the Darwinian Theory. Not
+ unnaturally, therefore, he turns for an appreciation of his work to the
+ free air and wide horizon of the English-speaking countries.</p>
+
+ <p>He has entitled his book "The Mechanism of Life," since however little
+ we may know of the origin of life, we may yet hope to get a glimpse of
+ the machinery, and perhaps even hear the whirr of the wheels in Nature's
+ workshop. The subject is of entrancing interest to the biologist and the
+ physician, quite apart from its bearing on the question of spontaneous
+ generation. Whatever view may be entertained by the different schools of
+ thought as to the nature and significance of life, all alike will welcome
+ this new and important contribution to our knowledge of the mechanism by
+ which Nature constructs the bewildering variety of her forms.</p>
+
+ <p>There is, I think, no more wonderful and illuminating spectacle than
+ that of an osmotic growth,&mdash;a crude lump of brute inanimate matter
+ germinating before our very eyes, putting forth bud and stem and root and
+ branch and leaf and fruit, with no stimulus from germ or seed, without
+ even <!-- Page viii --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="pageviii"></a>{viii}</span>the presence of organic matter. For
+ these mineral growths are not mere crystallizations as many suppose; they
+ increase by intussusception and not by accretion. They exhibit the
+ phenomena of circulation and respiration, and a crude sort of
+ reproduction by budding; they have a period of vigorous youthful growth,
+ of old age, of death and of decay. They imitate the forms, the colour,
+ the texture, and even the microscopical structure of organic growth so
+ closely as to deceive the very elect. When we find, moreover, that the
+ processes of nutrition are carried on in these osmotic productions just
+ as in living beings, that an injury to an osmotic growth is repaired by
+ the coagulation of its internal sap, and that it is able to perform
+ periodic movements just as an animal or a plant, we are at a loss to
+ define any line of separation between these mineral forms and those of
+ organic life.</p>
+
+ <p>In the present volume the author has collected all the data necessary
+ for a complete survey of the mechanism of life, which consists
+ essentially of those phenomena which are exhibited at the contact of
+ solutions of different degrees of concentration. Whatever may be the
+ verdict as to the author's case for spontaneous generation, all will
+ agree that the book is a most brilliant and stimulating study, founded on
+ the personal investigation of a born experimenter.</p>
+
+ <p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+ <p>The present volume is a translation of Dr. Leduc's French edition, but
+ it is more than this, the work has been translated, revised and
+ corrected, and in many places re-written, by the author's own hand. I am
+ responsible only for the English form of the treatise, and can but regret
+ that I have been able to reproduce so imperfectly the charm of the
+ original.</p>
+
+ <div class="poem">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <p>W. DEANE BUTCHER.</p>
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <p><span class="sc">Ealing.</span></p>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+
+ <p><br style="clear:both" /></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p><!-- Page ix --><span class="pagenum"><a name="pageix"></a>{ix}</span></p>
+
+<h3>PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION</h3>
+
+ <p>C'est par l'initiative du Dr. Deane Butcher que cette ouvrage est
+ presenté aux lecteurs anglais, à la race qui a doté l'humanité de tant de
+ découvertes originales, geniales et d'une portée très générale.</p>
+
+ <p>Comme un être vivant, une idée exige pour naître et se développer le
+ germe et le milieu de développement. Il est indéniable que le peuple
+ anglo-américain constitue un milieu particulièrement favorable à la
+ naissance et au développement des idées nouvelles.</p>
+
+ <p>Pendant notre collaboration le Dr. Deane Butcher a été un critique
+ judicieux et éclairé, tous les changements dans l'édition anglaise sont
+ dus à ses observations. Il s'est assimilé l'ouvrage pour le traduire, et
+ dans beaucoup de parties, il a mis plus de clarté et de concision qu'il
+ n'y en avait dans le texte original.</p>
+
+ <div class="poem">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <p>STÉPHANE LEDUC.</p>
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <p><span class="sc">Nantes, 1911.</span></p>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+
+ <p><br style="clear:both" /></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p><!-- Page xi --><span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexi"></a>{xi}</span></p>
+
+<h3>TABLE OF CONTENTS</h3>
+
+<table class="nobctr" summary="Table of contents." title="Table of contents.">
+<tr><td class="spacsingle"> </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom;"> PAGE</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="spacsingle"> <span class="sc">Translator's Preface</span> </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom;"> <a href="#pagevii">vii</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="spacsingle"> <span class="sc">Author's Preface</span> </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom;"> <a href="#pageix">ix</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="spacsingle"> <span class="sc">Introduction</span> </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom;"> <a href="#pagexiii">xiii</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="spacsingle"> I. <span class="sc">Life and Living Beings</span> </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom;"> <a href="#page1">1</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="spacsingle"> II. <span class="sc">Solutions</span> </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom;"> <a href="#page14">14</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="spacsingle"> III. <span class="sc">Electrolytic Solutions</span> </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom;"> <a href="#page24">24</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="spacsingle"> IV. <span class="sc">Colloids</span> </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom;"> <a href="#page36">36</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="spacsingle"> V. <span class="sc">Diffusion and Osmosis</span> </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom;"> <a href="#page43">43</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="spacsingle"> VI. <span class="sc">Periodicity</span> </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom;"> <a href="#page67">67</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="spacsingle"> VII. <span class="sc">Cohesion and Crystallization</span> </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom;"> <a href="#page78">78</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="spacsingle"> VIII. <span class="sc">Karyokinesis</span> </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom;"> <a href="#page89">89</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="spacsingle"> IX. <span class="sc">Energetics</span> </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom;"> <a href="#page97">97</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="spacsingle"> X. <span class="sc">Synthetic Biology</span> </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom;"> <a href="#page113">113</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="spacsingle"> XI. <span class="sc">Osmotic Growth: A Study in Morphogenesis</span> </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom;"> <a href="#page123">123</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="spacsingle"> XII. <span class="sc">The Phenomena of Life and Osmotic Productions:</span><br />
+ <span class="sc"> A Study in Physiogenesis</span> </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom;"> <a href="#page147">147</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="spacsingle"> XIII. <span class="sc">Evolution and Spontaneous Generation</span> </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom;"> <a href="#page160">160</a></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+ <p><br style="clear:both" /></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p><!-- Page xiii --><span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexiii"></a>{xiii}</span></p>
+
+<h3>INTRODUCTION</h3>
+
+ <p>Life was formerly regarded as a phenomenon entirely separated from the
+ other phenomena of Nature, and even up to the present time Science has
+ proved wholly unable to give a definition of Life; evolution, nutrition,
+ sensibility, growth, organization, none of these, not even the faculty of
+ reproduction, is the exclusive appanage of life.</p>
+
+ <p>Living things are made of the same chemical elements as minerals; a
+ living being is the arena of the same physical forces as those which
+ affect the inorganic world.</p>
+
+ <p>Life is difficult to define because it differs from one living being
+ to another; the life of a man is not that of a polyp or of a plant, and
+ if we find it impossible to discover the line which separates life from
+ the other phenomena of Nature, it is in fact because no such line of
+ demarcation exists&mdash;the passage from animate to inanimate is gradual
+ and insensible. The step between a stalagmite and a polyp is less than
+ that between a polyp and a man, and even the trained biologist is often
+ at a loss to determine whether a given borderland form is the result of
+ life, or of the inanimate forces of the mineral world.</p>
+
+ <p>A living being is a transformer of matter and energy&mdash;both matter
+ and energy being uncreateable and indestructible, i.e. invariable in
+ quantity. A living being is only a current of matter and of energy, both
+ of which change from moment to moment while passing through the
+ organism.</p>
+
+ <p>That which constitutes a living being is its form; for a living thing
+ is born, develops, and dies with the form and structure of its organism.
+ This ephemeral nature of the living being, which perishes with the
+ destruction of its form, is in <!-- Page xiv --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="pagexiv"></a>{xiv}</span>marked contrast to the perennial character
+ of the matter and the energy which circulate within it.</p>
+
+ <p>The elementary phenomenon of life is the contact between an alimentary
+ liquid and a cell. For the essential phenomenon of life is nutrition, and
+ in order to be assimilated all the elements of an organism must be
+ brought into a state of solution. Hence the study of life may be best
+ begun by the study of those physico-chemical phenomena which result from
+ the contact of two different liquids. Biology is thus but a branch of the
+ physico-chemistry of liquids; it includes the study of electrolytic and
+ colloidal solutions, and of the molecular forces brought into play by
+ solution, osmosis, diffusion, cohesion, and crystallization.</p>
+
+ <p>In this volume I have endeavoured to give as much of the science of
+ energetics as can be treated without the use of mathematical formulæ; the
+ conception of entropy and Carnot's law of thermodynamics are also
+ discussed.</p>
+
+ <p>The phenomena of catalysis and of diastatic fermentation have for the
+ first time been brought under the general laws of energetics. This I have
+ done by showing that catalysis is only one instance of the general law of
+ the transformation of potential into kinetic energy, viz. by the
+ intervention of a foreign exciting and stimulating energy which may be
+ infinitely smaller than the energy it transforms. This conception brings
+ life into line with other catalytic actions, and shows us a living being
+ as a store of potential energy, to be set free by an external stimulus
+ which may also excite sensation.</p>
+
+ <p>In a subsequent chapter I have dealt with the rise of Synthetic
+ Biology, whose history and methods I have described. It is only of late
+ that the progress of physico-chemical science has enabled us to enter
+ into this field of research, the final one in the evolution of biological
+ science.</p>
+
+ <p>The present work contains some of the earliest results of this
+ synthetic biology. We shall see how it is possible by the mere diffusion
+ of liquids to obtain forms which imitate with the greatest accuracy not
+ only the ordinary cellular tissues, but the more complicated striated
+ structures, such as muscle and mother-of-pearl. We shall also see how it
+ is <!-- Page xv --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="pagexv"></a>{xv}</span>possible by simple liquid diffusion to
+ reproduce in ordered and regular succession complicated movements like
+ those observed in the karyokinesis of the living cell.</p>
+
+ <p>The essential character of the living being is its Form. This is the
+ only characteristic which it retains during the whole of its existence,
+ with which it is born, which causes its development, and disappears with
+ its death. The task of synthetic biology is the recognition of those
+ physico-chemical forces and conditions which can produce forms and
+ structures analogous to those of living beings. This is the subject of
+ the chapter on Morphogenesis.</p>
+
+ <p>The last chapter deals with the doctrine of Evolution. The chain of
+ life is of necessity a continuous one, from the mineral at one end to the
+ most complicated organism at the other. We cannot allow that it is broken
+ at any point, or that there is a link missing between animate and
+ inanimate nature. Hence the theory of evolution necessarily admits the
+ physico-chemical nature of life and the fact of spontaneous generation.
+ Only thus can the evolutionary theory become a rational one, a
+ stimulating and fertile inspirer of research. We seek for the
+ physico-chemical forces which produce forms and structures analogous to
+ those of living beings, and phenomena analogous to those of life. We
+ study the alterations in environment which modify these forms, and we
+ seek in the past history of our planet for those natural phenomena which
+ have brought these physico-chemical forces into play. In this way we may
+ find the road which will, we hope, lead some day to the discovery of the
+ origin and the evolution of life upon the earth.</p>
+
+ <p><br style="clear:both" /></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p><!-- Page 1 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page1"></a>{1}</span></p>
+
+<h2>THE MECHANISM OF LIFE</h2>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER I</h3>
+
+<p class="cenhead">LIFE AND LIVING BEINGS</p>
+
+ <p>Primitive man distinguished but two kinds of bodies in nature, those
+ which were motionless and those which were animated. Movement was for him
+ the expression of life. The stream, the wind, the waves, all were alive,
+ and each was endowed with all the attributes of life&mdash;will,
+ sentiment, and passion. Ancient Greek mythology is but the poetic
+ expression of this primitive conception.</p>
+
+ <p>In the evolution of the intelligence, as in that of the body, the
+ development of the individual is but a repetition of the development of
+ the race. Even now children attribute life to everything that moves. For
+ them a little bird still lives in the inside of a watch, and produces the
+ tick-tick of the wheels. In modern times, however, we have learnt that
+ everything in nature moves, so that motion of itself cannot be considered
+ as the characteristic of life.</p>
+
+ <p>Heraclitus aptly compares life to a flame. Aristotle says, "Life is
+ nutrition, growth, and decay,&mdash;having for its cause a principle
+ which has its end in itself, namely <span title="entelecheia" class="grk"
+ >&#x1F10;&nu;&tau;&epsilon;&lambda;&#x1F73;&chi;&epsilon;&iota;&alpha;</span>."
+ This principle is itself in need of definition, and Aristotle only
+ substitutes one unknown epithet for another.</p>
+
+ <p>Bichat defined life as the ensemble of the functions which resist
+ death. This is to define life in terms of death,&mdash;but death is but
+ the end of life, and cannot be defined without first defining life.
+ Claude Bernard rejects all definition of life as insufficient, and
+ incompatible with experimental science. <!-- Page 2 --><span
+ class="pagenum"><a name="page2"></a>{2}</span></p>
+
+ <p>Some modern physiologists regard sensibility, others irritability, as
+ the characteristic of life, and define life as the faculty of responding,
+ by some sort of change, to an external stimulus. As in the case of
+ movement, we have found by more attentive observation that this faculty
+ also is universal in nature. There is no action without reaction; an
+ elastic body repels the body that strikes it. Every object in nature
+ dilates with heat, contracts with cold, and is modified by the light
+ which it absorbs. Everything in nature responds to exterior action by a
+ change, and hence this faculty cannot be the characteristic of life.</p>
+
+ <p>A distinguished professor of physiology was accustomed to teach that
+ the disproportion between action and reaction was the characteristic of
+ life. "Allow a gramme weight to fall on a nerve, and the muscle will
+ raise a weight of ten grammes. This disproportion is the characteristic
+ of life." But there is a much greater disproportion between action and
+ reaction when the friction of a match blows up a powder factory, or the
+ turning of a switch lights the lamps and animates the tramways and the
+ motors of a great city. The disproportion between action and reaction is
+ therefore no characteristic of life.</p>
+
+ <p>The essential characteristic of life is often said to be
+ nutrition&mdash;the phenomenon by which a living organism absorbs matter
+ from its environment, subjects it to chemical metamorphosis, assimilates
+ it, and finally ejects the destructive products of metamorphosis into the
+ surrounding medium. But this characteristic is also common to a great
+ number of ordinary chemical reactions, so that we cannot call it peculiar
+ to life. Consider, for instance, a fragment of calcium chloride immersed
+ in a solution of sodium carbonate. It absorbs the carbonic ion,
+ incorporates it into a molecule of calcium carbonate, and ejects the
+ chlorine ion into the surrounding medium.</p>
+
+ <p>It may be argued that this is merely a chemical process, since the
+ substance which determines the reaction is also modified, the chloride of
+ calcium changing into carbonate of calcium. But every living thing is
+ also changing its chemical <!-- Page 3 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page3"></a>{3}</span>constitution during every moment of its
+ existence,&mdash;it is this change which constitutes the process of
+ senile involution. The substance of the child is other than that of the
+ ovum, and the substance of the adult is not that of the child. Hence we
+ cannot regard nutrition as the exclusive characteristic of life.</p>
+
+ <p>Other authorities regard growth and organization as the essentials of
+ life. But crystals also grow. It was said that the growth of a crystal
+ differed from that of a living thing, in that the former grew by the
+ addition of material from without&mdash;the juxtaposition of bricks, as
+ it were&mdash;while the latter grew by intussusception, an introduction
+ of fresh material into the substance of the organism. A crystal,
+ moreover, was homogeneous, while the tissues of a living being were
+ differentiated&mdash;such differentiation constituting the organization.
+ At the present time, however, we recognize the existence of a great
+ variety of purely physical productions, the so-called "osmotic growths,"
+ which increase by a process of intussusception, and develop therefrom a
+ marvellous complexity of organization and of form. Hence growth and
+ organization cannot be considered as the essential characteristics of
+ life.</p>
+
+ <p>Since, then, we are totally unable to define the exact boundary which
+ separates life from the physical phenomena of nature, we may fairly
+ conclude that no such separation exists. This is in conformity with the
+ "law of continuity,"&mdash;the principle which asserts that all the
+ phenomena of nature are continuous in time and space. Classes, divisions,
+ and separations are all artificial, made not by nature but by man. All
+ the forms and phenomena of nature are united by insensible transition; it
+ is impossible to separate them, and in the distinction between living and
+ non-living things we must content ourselves with relative definitions,
+ which are far from being precise.</p>
+
+ <p>Life can only be defined as the sum of all phenomena exhibited by
+ living beings, and its definition thus becomes a mere corollary to the
+ definition of a living being.</p>
+
+ <p>The true definition of a living being is that it is a transformer of
+ energy, receiving from its environment the energy <!-- Page 4 --><span
+ class="pagenum"><a name="page4"></a>{4}</span>which it returns to that
+ environment under another form. All living organisms are transformers of
+ energy.</p>
+
+ <p>A living organism is also a transformer of matter. It absorbs matter
+ from its environment, transforms it, and returns it to its environment in
+ a different chemical condition. Living things are chemical transformers
+ of matter.</p>
+
+ <p>Living beings are also transformers of form. They commence as a very
+ simple form, which gradually develops and becomes more complicated.</p>
+
+ <p>The matter of which a living organism is constituted consists
+ essentially of certain solutions of crystalloids and colloids. To this we
+ may add an osmotic membrane to contain the liquids, and a solid skeleton
+ to support and protect them. Finally, it would seem that a colloid of one
+ of the albuminoid groups is a necessary constituent of every living
+ being.</p>
+
+ <p>We may say, then, that a living being is a transformer of energy and
+ of matter, containing certain albuminoid substances, with an evolutionary
+ form, the constitution of which is essentially liquid.</p>
+
+ <p>A living being has but a limited duration. It is born, develops,
+ becomes organized, declines and dies. Through all the metamorphoses of
+ form, of substance, and of energy, informing the whole course of its
+ existence, there is a certain co-ordination, a certain harmony, which is
+ necessary for the conservation of the individual. This harmony we call
+ Life. Discord is disease,&mdash;the total cessation of the harmony is
+ Death. When the form is profoundly altered and the substance changed, the
+ transformation of energy no longer follows its regular course, the
+ organism is dead.</p>
+
+ <p>After death the colloids which have constituted the form of the living
+ thing pass from their liquid state as "sols" into their coagulated state
+ as "gels." The metamorphoses of form, substance, and energy still
+ continue, but no longer harmoniously for the conservation of the
+ individual, but in dis-harmony for its dissolution. Finally, the form of
+ the individual disappears, the substance and the energy of the living
+ being is resolved and dispersed into other bodies and other phenomena.
+ <!-- Page 5 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page5"></a>{5}</span></p>
+
+ <p>The results hitherto obtained from the study of life seem but
+ inconsiderable when compared with the time and labour devoted to the
+ question. Max Verworn exclaims, "Are we on a false track? Do we ask our
+ questions of Nature amiss, or do we not read her answers aright?"</p>
+
+ <p>Each branch of science at its commencement employs only the simpler
+ methods of observation. It is purely descriptive. The next step is to
+ separate the different parts of the object studied&mdash;to dissect and
+ to analyse. The science has now become analytical. The final stage is to
+ reproduce the substances, the forms, and the phenomena which have been
+ the subject of investigation. The science has at last become
+ synthetical.</p>
+
+ <p>Up to the present time, biology has made use only of the first two
+ methods, the descriptive and the analytical. The analytical method is at
+ a grave disadvantage in all biological investigations, since it is
+ impossible to separate and analyse the elementary phenomena of life. The
+ function of an organ ceases when it is isolated from the organism of
+ which it forms a part. This is the chief cause of our lack of progress in
+ the analysis of life.</p>
+
+ <p>It is only recently that we have been able to apply the synthetic
+ method to the study of the phenomena of life. Now that we know that a
+ living organism is but the arena for the transformation of energy, we may
+ hope to reproduce the elementary phenomena of life, by calling into play
+ a similar transformation of energy in a suitable medium.</p>
+
+ <p>Organic chemistry has already obtained numerous victories in the same
+ direction, and the rapid advance in the production of organic bodies by
+ chemical synthesis may be considered the first-fruits of synthetic
+ biology.</p>
+
+ <p>A phenomenon is determined by a number of circumstances which we call
+ its causes, and of which it is the result. Every phenomenon, moreover,
+ contributes to the production of other phenomena which are called its
+ consequences. In order therefore to understand any phenomenon in its
+ entirety, we must determine all its causes both qualitatively and
+ quantitatively.</p>
+
+ <p>Phenomena succeed one another in time as consequences <!-- Page 6
+ --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page6"></a>{6}</span>one of another,
+ and thus form an uninterrupted chain from the infinite of the past into
+ the infinite of the future. A living being gathers from its entourage a
+ supply of matter and of energy, which it transforms and returns. It is
+ part and parcel of the medium in which it lives, which acts upon it, and
+ upon which it acts. The living being and the medium in which it exists
+ are mutually interdependent. This medium is in its turn dependent on its
+ entourage,&mdash;and so on from medium to medium throughout the regions
+ of infinite space.</p>
+
+ <p>One of the great laws of the universe is the law of continuity in time
+ and space. We must not lose sight of this law when we attempt to follow
+ the metamorphoses of matter, of energy and of form in living beings.
+ Evolution is but the expression of this law of continuity, this
+ succession of phenomena following one another like the links of a chain,
+ without discontinuity through the vast extent of time and space.</p>
+
+ <p>The other great universal law, that of conservation, applies with
+ equal force to living and to inanimate things. This law asserts the
+ uncreateability and the indestructibility of matter and of energy. A
+ given quantity of matter and of energy remains absolutely invariable
+ through all the transformations through which it may pass.</p>
+
+ <p>We need not here discuss the question of the possible transformation
+ of matter into ether, or of ether into ponderable matter. Such a
+ transformation, if it exists, would have but little bearing on the
+ phenomena of life. Moreover, it also will probably be found to conform to
+ the law of conservation of energy.</p>
+
+ <p>In marked contrast to the permanence of matter and of energy is the
+ ephemeral nature of form, as exhibited by living beings. Function, since
+ it is but the resultant of form, is also ephemeral. All the faculties of
+ life are bound up with its form,&mdash;a living being is born, exists,
+ and dies with its form.</p>
+
+ <p>The phenomena of life may in certain cases slow down from their normal
+ rapidity and intensity, as in hibernating <!-- Page 7 --><span
+ class="pagenum"><a name="page7"></a>{7}</span>animals, or be entirely
+ suspended, as in seeds. This state of suspension of life, of latent life
+ as it were, reminds us of a machine that has been stopped, but which
+ retains its form and substance unaltered, and may be started again
+ whenever the obstacle to its progress is removed.</p>
+
+ <p>During the whole course of its life a living being is intimately
+ dependent on its entourage. For example, the phenomena of life are
+ circumscribed within very narrow limits of temperature. A living
+ organism, consisting as it does essentially of liquid solutions, can only
+ exist at temperatures at which such solutions remain liquid, i.e. between
+ 0° C. and 100° C. Certain organisms, it is true, may be frozen, but their
+ life remains in a state of suspension so long as their substance remains
+ solid. Since the albuminoid substances which are a necessary component of
+ the living organism become coagulated at 44° C., the manifestations of
+ life diminish rapidly above this temperature. The intensity of life may
+ be said to augment gradually as the temperature rises from 0° to 40°, and
+ then to diminish rapidly as the temperature rises above that point,
+ becoming nearly extinct at 60° C.</p>
+
+ <p>Another condition indispensable to life is the presence of oxygen.
+ Life, compared by Heraclitus to a flame, is a combustion, an oxydation,
+ for which the presence of oxygen at a certain pressure is indispensable.
+ There are, it is true, certain anærobic micro-organisms which apparently
+ exist without oxygen, but these in reality obtain their oxygen from the
+ medium in which they grow.</p>
+
+ <p>Life is also influenced by light, by mechanical pressure, by the
+ chemical composition of its entourage, and by other conditions which we
+ do not as yet understand. In each case the conditions which are
+ favourable or noxious vary with the nature of the organism, some living
+ in air, some in fresh water, and others in the sea.</p>
+
+ <p>Formerly it was supposed that the substance of a living being was
+ essentially different from that of the mineral world, so much so that two
+ distinct chemistries were in existence&mdash;organic chemistry, the study
+ of substances derived from bodies which had once possessed life, and
+ inorganic chemistry, dealing <!-- Page 8 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page8"></a>{8}</span>with minerals, metalloids, and metals. We now
+ know that a living organism is composed of exactly the same elements as
+ those which constitute the mineral world. These are carbon, oxygen,
+ hydrogen, nitrogen, phosphorus, calcium, iron, sulphur, chlorine, sodium,
+ potassium, and one or two other elements in smaller quantity. It was
+ formerly supposed that the organic combinations of these elements were
+ found only in living organisms and could be fashioned only by vital
+ forces. In more recent times, however, an ever increasing number of
+ organic substances have been produced in the laboratory.</p>
+
+ <p>Organic bodies may be divided into four principal groups. (1)
+ <i>Carbohydrates</i>, including the sugars and the starches, all of which
+ may be considered as formed of carbon and water. (2) <i>Fats</i>, which
+ may be considered chemically as the ethers of glycerine, combinations of
+ one molecule of glycerine and three molecules of a fatty acid, with
+ elimination of water. (3) <i>Albuminoids</i>, substances whose molecules
+ are complex, containing nitrogen and sulphur in addition to carbon,
+ oxygen, and hydrogen. The albuminoid of the cell nucleus also contains
+ phosphorus, and the hæmoglobin of the blood contains iron. (4)
+ <i>Minerals</i> or inorganic elements, such as chloride of sodium,
+ phosphate of calcium, and carbonic acid. This group also includes water,
+ which is the most important constituent, since it forms more than a
+ moiety of the substance of all living creatures.</p>
+
+ <p>Wöhler in 1828 accomplished the first synthesis of an organic
+ substance, urea, one of the products of the decomposition of albumin.
+ Since then a large number of organic substances have been prepared by the
+ synthesis of their inorganic elements. The most recent advance in this
+ direction is that of Emile Fischer, who has produced polypeptides having
+ the same reactions as the peptones, by combining a number of molecules of
+ the amides of the fatty acids.</p>
+
+ <p>In the further synthesis of organic compounds the problems we have
+ before us are of the same order as those already solved. There is no
+ essential difference between organic and inorganic chemistry; living
+ organisms are formed of the <!-- Page 9 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page9"></a>{9}</span>same elements as the mineral world, and the
+ organic combinations of these elements may be realized in our
+ laboratories, just as in the laboratory of the living organism.</p>
+
+ <p>Not only so, but a living being only borrows for a short time those
+ mineral elements which, after having passed through the living organism,
+ are returned once again to the mineral kingdom from which they came.</p>
+
+ <p>All matter has life in itself&mdash;or, at any rate, all matter
+ susceptible of incorporation in a living cell. This life is potential
+ while the element is in the mineral state, and actual while the element
+ is passing through a living organism.</p>
+
+ <p>Mineral matter is changed into organic matter in its passage through a
+ vegetable organism. The carbonic acid produced by combustion and
+ respiration is absorbed by the chlorophyll of the leaves under the
+ stimulus of light&mdash;the oxygen of the carbonic acid being returned to
+ the air, while the carbon is utilized by the plant for the formation of
+ sugar, starch, cellulose, and fats.</p>
+
+ <p>Thus plants are fed in great part by their leaves, taking an important
+ part of their nourishment from the air, while by their roots they draw
+ from the earth the water, the phosphates, the mineral salts, and the
+ nitrates required for the formation of their albuminoid constituents. A
+ vegetable is a laboratory in which is carried out the process of organic
+ synthesis by which mineral materials are changed into organic matter. The
+ first synthetic reaction is the formation of a molecule of formic
+ aldehyde, CH<sub>2</sub>O, by the combination of a molecule of water with
+ an atom of carbon.</p>
+
+ <p>From this formic aldehyde, or formol, we may obtain all the various
+ carbohydrates by simple polymerization, i.e. by the association of
+ several molecules, with or without elimination of water. Thus two
+ molecules of formol form one molecule of acetic acid, 2CH<sub>2</sub>O =
+ C<sub>2</sub>H<sub>4</sub>O<sub>2</sub>. Three molecules of formol form a
+ molecule of lactic acid, 3CH<sub>2</sub>O =
+ C<sub>3</sub>H<sub>6</sub>O<sub>3</sub>. Six molecules of formol
+ represent glucose and levulose, 6CH<sub>2</sub>O =
+ C<sub>6</sub>H<sub>12</sub>O<sub>6</sub>. Twelve molecules of formol
+ minus one molecule of water form saccharose, lactose, cane sugar, and
+ sugar of milk, 12CH<sub>2</sub>O =
+ C<sub>12</sub>H<sub>22</sub>O<sub>11</sub> + H<sub>2</sub>O; <i>n</i>
+ times six <!-- Page 10 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page10"></a>{10}</span>molecules of formol minus one molecule of
+ water, <i>n</i>(C<sub>6</sub>H<sub>10</sub>O<sub>5</sub>), form starch
+ and cellulose.</p>
+
+ <p>Animals derive their nourishment from vegetables either directly, or
+ indirectly through the flesh of herbivorous animals. The mineral matter,
+ rendered organic in its passage through a vegetable growth, is finally
+ returned by the agency of animal organisms to the mineral world again, in
+ the form of carbonic acid, water, urea, and nitrates. Thus vegetables may
+ be regarded as synthetic agents, and animals and microbes as agents of
+ decomposition. Here also the difference is only relative, for in certain
+ cases vegetables produce carbonic acid, while some animal organisms
+ effect synthetic combinations. Moreover, there are intermediary forms,
+ such as fungi, which possessing no chlorophyll are nourished like animals
+ by organic matter, and yet like vegetables are able to manufacture
+ organic matter from mineral salts.</p>
+
+ <p>The work of combustion begun by the animal organism is finished by the
+ action of micro-organisms, who complete the oxydation&mdash;the
+ re-mineralization of the chemical substances drawn originally from the
+ inorganic world by the agency of plant life.</p>
+
+ <p>To sum up. Vegetables obtain their nourishment from mineral
+ substances, which they reduce, de-oxydize, and charge with solar energy.
+ Animal organisms on the contrary oxydize, and micro-organisms complete
+ the oxydation of these substances, returning them to the mineral world as
+ water, carbonates, nitrates, and sulphates.</p>
+
+ <p>Thus matter circulates eternally from the mineral to the vegetable,
+ from the vegetable to the animal world, and back again. The matter which
+ forms our structure, which is to-day part and parcel of ourselves, has
+ formed the structure of an infinite number of living beings, and will
+ continue to pursue its endless reincarnation after our decease.</p>
+
+ <p>This endless cycle of life is also an endless cycle of energy. The
+ combination of carbon with water carried out by the agency of chlorophyll
+ can only take place with absorption of energy. This energy comes directly
+ from the sun, the red and orange light radiations being absorbed by the
+ chlorophyll. <!-- Page 11 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page11"></a>{11}</span>The arrest of vegetation during the winter
+ months is due not so much to the lowering of temperature as to the
+ diminution of the radiant energy received from the sun. In the same way
+ shade is harmful to vegetation, since the radiant energy required for
+ growth is prevented from reaching the plant.</p>
+
+ <p>The energy radiated by the sun is accumulated and stored in the plant
+ tissues. Later on, animals feed on the plants and utilize this energy,
+ excreting the products of decomposition, <i>i.e.</i> the constituents of
+ their food minus the energy contained in it. Thus the whole of the energy
+ which animates living beings, the whole of the energy which constitutes
+ life, comes from the sun. To the sun also we owe all artificial heat, the
+ energy stored up in wood and coal. We are all of us children of the
+ sun.</p>
+
+ <p>The radiant energy of the sun is transformed by plants into chemical
+ energy. It is this chemical energy which feeds the vital activity of
+ animals, who return it to the external world under the form of heat,
+ mechanical work, and muscular contraction, light in the glow-worm,
+ electricity in the electric eel.</p>
+
+ <p>There is a marked difference between the forms affected by organic and
+ inorganic substances. The forms of the mineral world are those of
+ crystals&mdash;geometrical forms, bounded by straight lines, planes, and
+ regular angles. Living organisms, on the contrary, affect forms which are
+ less regular&mdash;curved surfaces and rounded angles. The physical
+ reason for this difference in form lies in a difference of consistency,
+ crystals being solid, whereas living organisms are liquids or
+ semi-liquids. The liquids of nature, streams and clouds and dewdrops,
+ affect the same rounded forms as those of living organisms.</p>
+
+ <p>Living beings for the most part present a remarkable degree of
+ symmetry. Some, like radiolarians and star-fish, have a stellate form. In
+ plants the various organs often radiate from an axis, in such a manner
+ that on turning the plant about this axis the various forms are
+ superposed thrice, four, or more often five times in one complete
+ revolution. It is remarkable how often this number five recurs in the
+ <!-- Page 12 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page12"></a>{12}</span>divisions and parts of a living organism. In
+ other cases the similar parts are disposed symmetrically on either side
+ of a median line or plane, giving a series of homologous parts which are
+ not superposable.</p>
+
+ <p>The most important characteristic of a living being is its form. This
+ is implicitly admitted by naturalists, who classify animals and plants in
+ genera and species according to the differences and analogies of their
+ form.</p>
+
+ <p>All living beings are composed of elementary organizations called
+ cells. In its complete state, a cell consists of a membrane or envelope
+ containing a mass of protoplasm, in the centre of which is a nucleus of
+ differentiated protoplasm. This nucleus may in its turn contain a
+ nucleolus. In some cases the cell is merely a protoplasmic mass without a
+ visible envelope, so that a cell may be defined as essentially a mass of
+ protoplasm provided with a nucleus.</p>
+
+ <p>A living organism may consist merely of a single cell, which is able
+ alone to accomplish all the functions of life. Most living beings,
+ however, consist of a collection of innumerable cells forming a cellular
+ association or community. When a number of cells are thus united to
+ constitute a single living being, the various functions of life are
+ divided among different cellular groups. Certain cells become specialized
+ for the accomplishment of a single function, and to each function
+ corresponds a different form of cell. It is thus easy to recognize by
+ their form the nerve cells, the muscle cells which perform the function
+ of movement, and the glandular cells which perform the function of
+ secretion. The cells of a living being are microscopic in size, and it is
+ remarkable that they never attain to any considerable dimensions.</p>
+
+ <p>In order that life may be maintained in a living organism, it is
+ necessary that a continual supply of aliment should be brought to it, and
+ that certain other substances, the waste-products of combustion, should
+ be eliminated. In order to be absorbed and assimilated, the alimentary
+ substances must be presented to the living organism in a liquid or
+ gaseous state. Thus the essential condition necessary for the <!-- Page
+ 13 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page13"></a>{13}</span>maintenance
+ of life is the contact of a living cell with a current of liquid. The
+ elementary physical phenomenon of life is the contact of two different
+ liquids. This is the necessary condition which renders possible the
+ chemical exchanges and the transformations of energy which constitute
+ life. It is in the study of the phenomena of liquid contact and diffusion
+ that we may best hope to pierce the secrets of life. The physics of vital
+ action are the physics of the phenomena which occur in liquids, and the
+ study of the physics of a liquid must be the preface and the basis of all
+ inquiry into the nature and origin of life.</p>
+
+ <p><br style="clear:both" /></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p><!-- Page 14 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page14"></a>{14}</span></p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER II</h3>
+
+<p class="cenhead">SOLUTIONS</p>
+
+ <p>We have seen that living beings are transformers of energy and of
+ matter, evolutionary in form and liquid in consistency; that they are
+ solutions of colloids and crystalloids separated by osmotic membranes to
+ form microscopic cells, or consisting merely of a gelatinous mass of
+ protoplasm, with a nucleus of slightly differentiated material. The
+ elementary phenomenon of life is the contact of two different solutions.
+ This is the initial physical phenomenon from which proceed all the other
+ phenomena of life in accordance with the ordinary chemical and physical
+ laws. Thus the basis of biological science is the study of solution and
+ of the phenomena which occur between two different solutions, either in
+ immediate contact or when separated by a membrane.</p>
+
+ <p>A solution is a homogeneous mixture of one or more solutes in a liquid
+ solvent. Before solution the solute or dissolved substance may be solid,
+ liquid, or gaseous.</p>
+
+ <p>Solutes, or substances capable of solution, may be divided into two
+ classes&mdash;substances which are capable of crystallization, or
+ crystalloids; and those which are incapable of crystallization, the
+ colloids. Crystalloids may be divided again into two classes, those whose
+ solutions are ionizable and therefore conduct electricity, chiefly salts,
+ acids, and bases; and those whose solutions are non-ionizable and are
+ therefore non-conductors. These latter are for the most part
+ crystallizable substances of organic origin, such as sugars, urea,
+ etc.</p>
+
+ <p>Avogadro's law asserts that under similar conditions of temperature
+ and pressure, equal volumes of various gases <!-- Page 15 --><span
+ class="pagenum"><a name="page15"></a>{15}</span>contain an equal number
+ of molecules. Under similar conditions, the molecular weights of
+ different substances have therefore the same ratio as the weights of
+ equal volumes of their vapours. Hence if we fix arbitrarily the molecular
+ weight of any one substance, the molecular weight of all other substances
+ is thereby determined. The molecular weight of hydrogen has been
+ arbitrarily fixed as two, and hence the molecular weight of any substance
+ will be double its gaseous density when compared with that of
+ hydrogen.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Gramme-Molecule.</i>&mdash;A gramme-molecule is the molecular
+ weight of a body expressed in grammes. Occasionally for brevity a
+ gramme-molecule is spoken of as a "molecule." Thus we may say that the
+ molecular weight of oxygen is 16 grammes, meaning thereby that there are
+ the same number of molecules in 16 grammes of oxygen as there are atoms
+ in 1 gramme of hydrogen.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Concentration.</i>&mdash;The concentration of a solution is the
+ ratio between the quantity of the solute and the quantity of the solvent.
+ The concentration of a solution is expressed in various ways. (<i>a</i>)
+ The weight of solute dissolved in 100 grammes of the solvent. (<i>b</i>)
+ The weight of solute present in 100 grammes of the solution. (<i>c</i>)
+ The weight of solute dissolved in a litre of the solvent. (<i>d</i>) The
+ weight of solute in a litre of the solution. The most usual method is to
+ give the concentration as the weight of solute dissolved in 100 grammes
+ or in one litre of the solvent.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Molecular Concentration.</i>&mdash;Many of the physical and
+ biological properties of a solution are proportional, not to its mass or
+ weight concentration, but to its molecular concentration, <i>i.e</i>. to
+ the number of gramme-molecules of the solute contained in a litre of the
+ solution. Many physical properties are quite independent of the nature of
+ the solute, depending only on its degree of molecular concentration.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Normal Solution.</i>&mdash;A normal solution is one which contains
+ one gramme-molecule of the solute per litre. A decinormal solution
+ contains one-tenth of a gramme-molecule of the solute per litre, and a
+ centinormal solution one-hundredth of a gramme-molecule. A normal
+ solution of urea, for example, <!-- Page 16 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page16"></a>{16}</span>contains 60 grammes of urea per litre, while
+ a normal solution of sugar contains 342 grammes of sugar per litre.</p>
+
+ <p><i>The Dissolved Substance is a Gas.</i>&mdash;Van t' Hoff, using the
+ data obtained by the botanist Pfeffer, showed that the dissolved matter
+ in a solution behaved exactly as if it were a gas. The analogy is
+ complete in every respect. Like the gaseous molecules, the molecules of a
+ solute are mobile with respect to one another. Like those of a gas, the
+ molecules of a solute tend to spread themselves equally, and to fill the
+ whole space at their disposal, <i>i.e.</i> the whole volume of the
+ solution. The surface of the solution represents the vessel containing
+ the gas, which confines it within definite limits and prevents further
+ expansion.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Osmotic Pressure.</i>&mdash;Like the molecules of a gas, the
+ molecules of a solute exercise pressure on the boundaries of the space
+ containing it. This osmotic pressure follows exactly the same laws as
+ gaseous pressure. It has the same constants, and all the notions acquired
+ by the study of gaseous pressure are applicable to osmotic pressure.
+ Osmotic pressure is in fact the gaseous pressure of the molecules of the
+ solute.</p>
+
+ <p>When a gas dilates and increases in volume, its temperature falls, and
+ cold is produced. Similarly, when a soluble substance is dissolved, it
+ increases in volume, and the temperature of the liquid falls. This
+ phenomenon is well known as a means of producing cold by a refrigerating
+ mixture.</p>
+
+ <p>The phenomena of life are governed by the laws of gaseous pressure,
+ since all these phenomena take place in solutions. The fundamental laws
+ of biology are those of the distribution of substances in solution, which
+ is regulated by the laws of gaseous pressure, since all these laws are
+ applicable also to osmotic pressure.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Boyle's Law</i>.&mdash;When a gas is compressed its volume is
+ diminished. If the pressure is doubled, the volume is reduced to
+ one-half. The quantity V × P, that is the volume multiplied by the
+ pressure, is constant.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Gay-Lussac's Law.</i>&mdash;For a difference of temperature of a
+ degree Centigrade all gases dilate or contract by 1 / 273 of their volume
+ at 0° Centigrade. <!-- Page 17 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page17"></a>{17}</span></p>
+
+ <p><i>Dalton's Law.</i>&mdash;In a gaseous mixture, the total pressure is
+ equal to the sum of the pressures which each gas would exert if it alone
+ filled the whole of the receptacle.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Pressure proportional to Molecular Concentration.</i>&mdash;The
+ above laws are completely independent of the chemical nature of the gas,
+ they depend only on the number of gaseous molecules in a given space,
+ <i>i.e.</i> on the molecular concentration. If we double the mass of the
+ gas in a given space, we double the number of molecules, and we also
+ double the pressure, whatever the nature of the molecules. We may also
+ double the pressure by compressing the molecules of a gas, or of several
+ gases, into a space half the original size. The molecular concentration
+ of a gas, or of a mixture of gases, is the ratio of the number of
+ molecules to the volume they occupy. The pressure of a gas or of a
+ mixture of gases is proportional to its molecular concentration. This is
+ a better and a shorter way of expressing both Boyle's law and Dalton's
+ law.</p>
+
+ <p>One gramme-molecule of a gas, whatever its nature, condensed into the
+ volume of 1 litre, has a pressure of 22.35 atmospheres. Similarly one
+ gramme-molecule of a solute, whatever its nature, when dissolved in a
+ litre of water, has the same pressure, viz. 22.35 atmospheres.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Absolute Zero.</i>&mdash;According to Gay-Lussac's law, the volume
+ of a gas diminishes by 1 / 273 of its volume at 0° C. for each degree
+ fall of temperature. Thus if the contraction is the same for all
+ temperatures, the volume would be reduced to zero at -273° C. This is the
+ absolute zero of temperature. Temperatures measured from this point are
+ called absolute temperatures, and are designated by the symbol T. If
+ <i>t°</i> indicates the Centigrade temperature above the freezing point
+ of water, then the absolute temperature is equal to <i>t°</i> + 273°.</p>
+
+ <p><i>The Gaseous Constant.</i>&mdash;Consider a mass of gas at 0° C.
+ under a pressure P<sub>o</sub>, with volume V<sub>o</sub>. At the
+ absolute temperature T, if the pressure be unaltered, the volume of this
+ gas will be V<sub>o</sub>T / 273. Therefore the constant PV, the product
+ of the pressure by the volume, will be represented by
+ P<sub>o</sub>V<sub>o</sub>T / 273. <!-- Page 18 --><span
+ class="pagenum"><a name="page18"></a>{18}</span></p>
+
+ <p>At the same temperature, but under another pressure P&prime; the gas
+ will have a different volume V&prime;. Since, according to Boyle's law,
+ PV is constant (P&prime;V&prime; = P<sub>o</sub>V<sub>o</sub>), it will
+ still equal P<sub>o</sub>V<sub>o</sub>T / 273. Therefore
+ P<sub>o</sub>V<sub>o</sub> / 273 is also constant. This quantity is
+ called "the gaseous constant," and if we represent it by the symbol R, we
+ obtain the general formula PV = RT for all gases, or PV / T = R.</p>
+
+ <p>Suppose, for instance, we have a gramme-molecule of a gas at 0° C. in
+ a space of 1 litre. It has a pressure of 22.35 atmospheres at 0° C., or
+ 273° absolute temperature. Since PV = RT, R = PV / T = 1 × 22.35 / 273 =
+ .0819. This number .0819 is the numerical value of the constant R for all
+ gases, volume being measured in litres and pressure in atmospheres.</p>
+
+ <p>Substances in solution behave exactly like gases, they follow the same
+ laws and have the same constants. All the conceptions which have been
+ acquired by the study of gases are applicable to solutions, and therefore
+ to the phenomena of life. The osmotic pressure of a solution is the force
+ with which the molecules of the solute, like gaseous molecules, strive to
+ diffuse into space, and press on the limits which confine them, the
+ containing vessel being represented by the surfaces of the solution.
+ Osmotic pressure is measured in exactly the same way as gaseous pressure.
+ To measure steam pressure we insert a manometer in the walls of the
+ boiler. In the same way we may use a manometer to measure osmotic
+ pressure. We attach the tube to the walls of the porous vessel, allow the
+ solvent to increase in volume under the pressure of the solute, and
+ measure the rise of the liquid in the manometer tube.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Pfeffer's Apparatus.</i>&mdash;Pfeffer has designed an apparatus
+ for the measurement of osmotic pressure. It consists of a vessel of
+ porous porcelain, the pores of which are filled with a colloidal solution
+ of ferrocyanide of copper. This forms a semi-permeable membrane which
+ permits the passage of water into the vessel, but prevents the passage of
+ sugar or of any <!-- Page 19 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page19"></a>{19}</span>colloid. The stopper which hermetically
+ closes the vessel is pierced for the reception of a mercury manometer.
+ The vessel is filled with a solution of sugar and plunged in a bath of
+ water. The volume of the solution in the interior of the vessel can vary,
+ since water passes easily in either direction through the pores of the
+ vessel. The boundary of the solvent has become extensible, and its volume
+ can increase or diminish in accordance with the osmotic pressure of the
+ solute. Under the pressure of the sugar water is sucked into the vessel
+ like air into a bellows, the solution passes into the tube of the
+ manometer, and raises the column of mercury until its pressure balances
+ the osmotic pressure of the sugar molecules.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Osmotic Pressure follows the Laws of Gaseous
+ Pressure.</i>&mdash;This osmotic pressure is in fact gaseous pressure,
+ and may be measured in millimetres of mercury in just the same way. We
+ may thus show that osmotic pressure follows the laws of gaseous pressure
+ as defined by Boyle, Dalton, and Gay-Lussac. The coefficient of pressure
+ variation for change of temperature is the same for a solute as for a
+ gas. The formula PV = RT is applicable to both. The numerical value of
+ the constant R is also the same for a solute as for a gas. being .0819
+ for one gramme-molecule of either, when the volume is expressed in litres
+ and the pressure in atmospheres. The formula PV = RT shows that for a
+ given mass, with the same volume, the pressure increases in proportion to
+ the absolute temperature.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Osmotic Pressure of Sugar.</i>&mdash;A normal solution of sugar,
+ containing 342 grammes of sugar per litre, has a pressure of 22.35
+ atmospheres, and it may well be asked why such an enormous pressure is
+ not more evident. The reason will be found in the immense frictional
+ resistance to diffusion. Frictional resistance is proportional to the
+ area of the surfaces in contact, and this area increases rapidly with
+ each division of the substance. When a solute is resolved into its
+ component molecules, its surface is enormously increased, and therefore
+ the friction between the molecules of the solute and those of the
+ solvent.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Isotonic Solutions.</i>&mdash;Two solutions which have the same
+ <!-- Page 20 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page20"></a>{20}</span>osmotic pressure are said to be iso-osmotic
+ or isotonic. When comparing two solutions of different concentration, the
+ solution with the higher osmotic pressure is said to be hypertonic, and
+ that with the lower osmotic pressure hypotonic.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Lowering of the Freezing Point.</i>&mdash;Pure water freezes at 0°
+ C. Raoult showed that the introduction of a non-ionizable substance, such
+ as sugar or alcohol, lowers the freezing point of a solution in
+ proportion to the molecular concentration of the solute. One
+ gramme-molecule of the solute introduced into one litre of the solution
+ lowers its temperature of congelation by 1.85° C. Thus a normal solution
+ of any non-ionizable substance in water freezes at -1.85° C. The
+ measurement of this lowering of the freezing point is called Cryoscopy, a
+ method which is becoming of great utility in medicine.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Cryoscopy of Blood.</i>&mdash;In order to determine the osmotic
+ pressure of the blood at 37° C., <i>i.e.</i> 98.6° F., the normal
+ temperature, we proceed as follows. On freezing the blood, we find that
+ it congeals at -.56°. Its molecular concentration is therefore .56 / 1.85
+ = .30, or about one-third of a gramme-molecule per litre. Its osmotic
+ pressure at 0° C. is therefore .3 × 22.35 = 6.7 atmospheres. The increase
+ of pressure with temperature is the same as for a gas, viz. 1/273, or
+ .00367 of its pressure at 0° for every degree rise of temperature. The
+ increase of pressure at 37° is therefore .00367 × 37 × 6.7 = .9
+ atmospheres. The total osmotic pressure at 37° is therefore 6.7 + .9 =
+ 7.6 atmospheres.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Rise of Boiling Point.</i>&mdash;Water under atmospheric pressure
+ boils at a temperature of 100° C. The addition of a solute whose solution
+ does not conduct electricity, such as sugar, causes a rise in the boiling
+ point proportional to the molecular concentration of that solute.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Lowering of the Vapour Tension.</i>&mdash;The vapour tension of a
+ liquid is lowered by the addition of a solute. A liquid boils at the
+ temperature at which its vapour tension equals that of the atmosphere.
+ Since an aqueous solution of sugar at atmospheric pressure does not begin
+ to boil at 100° C., it is manifest that its vapour tension is then less
+ than that of the <!-- Page 21 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page21"></a>{21}</span>atmosphere. The addition of a solute such as
+ sugar, whose solution is not ionizable, and therefore does not conduct
+ electricity, lowers the vapour tension of the solution in proportion to
+ the molecular concentration of the solute.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Corresponding Values.</i>&mdash;We have thus found five properties
+ of a solution which vary proportionally, so that from the measurement of
+ any one of them we can determine the corresponding values of all the
+ others. These are&mdash;</p>
+
+ <div class="poem">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <p>1. The Molecular Concentration.</p>
+ <p>2. The Osmotic Pressure.</p>
+ <p>3. The Diminution of Vapour Tension.</p>
+ <p>4. The Raising of the Boiling Point.</p>
+ <p>5. The Lowering of the Freezing Point.</p>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+
+ <p><i>Cryoscopy.</i>&mdash;The usual method employed for the
+ determination of the molecular concentration and osmotic pressure of a
+ solution is by cryoscopy&mdash;the measurement of its temperature of
+ congelation. A very sensitive thermometer is used, the scale of which
+ extends over only 5° and is divided into hundredths of a degree. The
+ liquid under examination is placed in a test tube, in which the bulb of
+ the thermometer is plunged, and this is supported in a second tube with
+ an air space all round it. The whole is then suspended to the under side
+ of the cover of the refrigerating vessel, which may be cooled either by
+ filling it with a freezing mixture, or by the evaporation of ether.
+ During the whole of the operation the liquid is agitated by a mechanical
+ stirrer. The first step is to determine the freezing point of distilled
+ water. As the water cools the mercury gradually descends in the stem of
+ the thermometer till it reaches a point below the zero mark at 0° C. As
+ soon as ice begins to form the mercury rises, at first rapidly and then
+ more slowly, reaches a maximum, and finally descends again. This maximum
+ reading is the true point of congelation. The inner tube is then emptied,
+ care being taken to leave a few small ice crystals to serve as centres of
+ congelation for the subsequent experiment, thus avoiding supercooling of
+ the solution. The process is then repeated with the solution under
+ examination. The difference between <!-- Page 22 --><span
+ class="pagenum"><a name="page22"></a>{22}</span>the two freezing points
+ is the required "lowering of the freezing point."</p>
+
+ <p>Cryoscopy is the method most used in biological research to determine
+ molecular concentration. It has, however, some grave defects. It
+ necessitates several cubic centimetres of the liquid under examination.
+ It gives us the constants of the solution at the temperature of freezing,
+ which is far below that of life. Organic liquids are easily altered and
+ are extremely sensible to minute differences of temperature, cryoscopy
+ therefore gives us no information as to the constitution of solutions
+ under normal conditions. It is desirable to have some other method of
+ determining molecular concentration and the other interdependent
+ constants at the normal temperature of life. A much better method, were
+ it possible, would be the direct determination of the vapour tension of
+ the solutions under normal conditions of temperature and pressure.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Molecular Lowering of the Freezing Point.</i>&mdash;For every
+ substance whose solution is not ionized and therefore does not conduct
+ electricity, the lowering of the freezing point is the same, viz. 1.85°
+ C. for each gramme-molecule of the solute per litre of the solution.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Determination of the Molecular Concentration.</i>&mdash;In order to
+ obtain the molecular concentration of a non-ionizable substance, we have
+ only to determine the lowering of the freezing point. Let A be the
+ lowering of the freezing point of any solution. On dividing it by 1.85
+ (the lowering of the freezing point for a normal solution), we obtain the
+ number of gramme-molecules in a litre of the solution. If <i>n</i> be the
+ number of gramme-molecules per litre, then <i>n</i> = A / 1.85.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Determination of the Osmotic Pressure.</i>&mdash;The osmotic
+ pressure P of a solution may be obtained by multiplying its molecular
+ concentration <i>n</i> by 22.35 atmospheres. P = <i>n</i> × 22.35 = A /
+ 1.85 × 22.35.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Determination of Molecular Weight.</i>&mdash;The lowering of the
+ freezing point also enables us to calculate the molecular <!-- Page 23
+ --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page23"></a>{23}</span>weight of any
+ non-ionizable solute. Thus Bouchard has been able to determine by means
+ of cryoscopy the mean molecular weight of the substances eliminated by
+ the urine. A weight <i>x</i> of the substance is dissolved in a litre of
+ water, and the lowering of the freezing point is observed. The value thus
+ found divided by 1.85 gives us <i>n</i>, the number of gramme-molecules
+ per litre. The molecular weight M may be determined by dividing the
+ original weight <i>x</i> by <i>n</i>.</p>
+
+ <p>The study of osmotic pressure was begun by the Abbé Nollet; and one of
+ his disciples, Parrot, at an early date thus described its importance:
+ "It is a force analogous in all respects to the mechanical forces, a
+ force able to set matter in motion, or to act as a static force in
+ producing pressure. It is this force which causes the circulation of
+ heterogeneous matter in the liquids which serve as its vehicle. It is
+ this force which produces those actions which escape our notice by their
+ minuteness and bewilder us by their results. It is for the infinitely
+ small particles of matter what gravitation is for heavy masses. It can
+ displace matter in solution upwards against gravity as easily as
+ downwards or in a horizontal direction."</p>
+
+ <p>Thus the recognition of the fact that a substance in solution is
+ really a gas, has at a single stroke put us in possession of the laws of
+ osmotic pressure&mdash;laws slowly and laboriously discovered by the long
+ series of investigations on the pressure of gases.</p>
+
+ <p>Osmotic pressure plays a most important rôle in the arena of life. It
+ is found at work in all the phenomena of life. When osmotic pressure
+ fails, life itself ceases.</p>
+
+ <p><br style="clear:both" /></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p><!-- Page 24 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page24"></a>{24}</span></p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER III</h3>
+
+<p class="cenhead">ELECTROLYTIC SOLUTIONS</p>
+
+ <p><i>Solutions which conduct Electricity.</i>&mdash;The laws of solution
+ which we have studied in the previous chapter apply only to those
+ solutions, chiefly of organic origin, which do not conduct electricity.
+ Solutions of electrolytes such as the ordinary salts, acids, and bases,
+ which are ionized on solution, give values for the various constants of
+ solution which do not accord with those required by theory. If, for
+ instance, we take a gramme-molecule of an electrolyte such as chloride of
+ sodium, and dissolve it in a litre of water, we find that the lowering of
+ the freezing point is nearly double the theoretical value of 1.85°. The
+ same holds good for the osmotic pressure, and for all the constants which
+ are proportional to the molecular concentration of the solute. The
+ solution behaves, in each case, as if it contained more than one
+ gramme-molecule of sodium chloride per litre. It behaves, in fact, as if
+ it contained <i>i</i> times the number of molecules of solute originally
+ introduced into it. If <i>n</i> be the original number of molecules, then
+ it will apparently contain <i>n&prime; = in</i> molecules. This law is
+ universal for all electrolytic solutions; the theoretical value for their
+ concentration, osmotic pressure, and all the proportional physical
+ constants must be multiplied by this quantity, <i>i = n&prime;/n</i>,
+ which is the ratio of the apparent number of the molecules present to the
+ number originally introduced.</p>
+
+ <p>A similar dissociation of the molecule is observed in the case of many
+ gases. The vapour of chloride of ammonium, for instance, is decomposed by
+ heat, and it may be shown experimentally that the increase of pressure on
+ heating above <!-- Page 25 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page25"></a>{25}</span>that which theory demands, is due to an
+ increase in the number of the gaseous molecules present. Some of the
+ vapour particles are dissociated into two or more fragments, each of
+ which plays the part of a single molecule.</p>
+
+ <p>Arrhenius, in 1885, advanced the hypothesis that the apparent increase
+ in the number of molecules of an electrolytic solution was also due to
+ dissociation. This interpretation at once threw a flood of light on a
+ number of phenomena hitherto obscure.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Coefficient of Dissociation.</i>&mdash;We have seen that in order
+ to obtain values which accord with experiment we have to multiply the
+ number of gramme-molecules of the solute by the coefficient <i>i</i>,
+ which is called the Coefficient of Dissociation.</p>
+
+ <p>This coefficient of dissociation, <i>i</i>, may be found by observing
+ the lowering of the freezing point of a normal solution, and dividing it
+ by 1.85. <i>i</i> = <i>t</i>/1.85.</p>
+
+ <p>The coefficient of dissociation varies with the degree of
+ concentration of the solution, rising to a maximum when the solution is
+ sufficiently diluted.</p>
+
+ <p>If we know <i>i</i>, the coefficient of dissociation for a given
+ solute, contained in a solution of a definite concentration, we can find
+ <i>n&prime;</i>, the number of particles present in a solution containing
+ <i>n</i> gramme-molecules of the solute per litre, since <i>n&prime;</i>
+ = <i>in</i>. On the other hand, if from a consideration of its freezing
+ point and other constants we find that an electrolytic solution appears
+ to contain <i>n&prime;</i> gramme-molecules per litre, the real number of
+ chemical gramme-molecules in one litre of the solution will be only
+ <i>n&prime;</i> / <i>i</i> = <i>n</i>.</p>
+
+ <p>Very concentrated solutions do not conform to these laws. In this they
+ resemble gases, which as they approach their point of condensation tend
+ less and less to conform to the laws of gaseous pressure.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Electrolysis.</i>&mdash;If we take a solution of an acid, a salt,
+ or a base, and dip into it two metallic rods, one connected to the
+ positive and the other to the negative pole of a battery, we <!-- Page 26
+ --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page26"></a>{26}</span>find that the
+ metals or metallic radicals of the solution are liberated at the negative
+ pole, while the acid radicals of the salts and acids and the hydroxyl of
+ the bases are liberated at the positive pole. The liberated substances
+ may either be discharged unchanged, or they may enter into new
+ combinations, causing a series of secondary reactions.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Electrolytes.</i>&mdash;Solutions which conduct electricity are
+ called Electrolytes, and the conducting metallic rods dipping into the
+ solution are the Electrodes. Faraday gave the names of Ions to the atoms
+ or atom-groups liberated at either electrode. The ions liberated at the
+ positive electrode are the Anions, and those at the negative electrode
+ are the Cations. The only solutions which possess any notable degree of
+ electrical conductivity are the aqueous solutions of the various salts,
+ acids, and bases, and in these solutions only do we meet with those
+ phenomena of dissociation which are evidenced by anomalies of osmotic
+ pressure, freezing point and the like,&mdash;anomalies which show that
+ the solution contains a greater number of molecules than that indicated
+ by its molecular concentration. These anomalies are due to dissociation,
+ the division of some of the molecules into fragments, each of which plays
+ the part of a separate molecule, contributing its quota to the osmotic
+ tension and vapour pressure of the solution, in fact to all the phenomena
+ which are dependent on the degree of molecular concentration. The
+ electrical conductivity of a solution is therefore proved to be dependent
+ on its molecular dissociation.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Arrhenius' Theory of Electrolysis.</i>&mdash;In 1885, Arrhenius
+ brought forward his theory of the transport of electricity by an
+ electrolyte. According to this hypothesis, the electric current is
+ carried by the ions, the positive charges by the cations, and the
+ negative charges by the anions. In virtue of the attraction between
+ charges of different sign, and repulsion between charges of like sign,
+ the cations are repelled by the positive charge on the anode, and
+ attracted by the negative charge on the cathode. Similarly the anions are
+ repelled by the cathode and attracted by the anode. <!-- Page 27 --><span
+ class="pagenum"><a name="page27"></a>{27}</span></p>
+
+ <p>An electrolytic solution contains three varieties of particles,
+ positive ions or cations, negative ions or anions, and undissociated
+ neutral molecules. The molecular concentration of such a solution, with
+ the corresponding constants, depends on the total number of these
+ particles, <i>i.e.</i> the sum of the ions and the undissociated neutral
+ molecules. We may indicate an ion by placing above it the sign of its
+ electrical charge, one sign for each valency. Thus Na<sup>+</sup> and
+ Cl<sup>-</sup> indicate the two ions of a salt solution; Cu<sup>++</sup>
+ and SO<sub>4</sub><sup>--</sup> the two ions of a solution of sulphate
+ of copper. A point is sometimes substituted for the + sign, and a comma
+ for the - sign. Thus Na<sup>.</sup> and Cl<sup>,</sup>; Cu<sup>..</sup>
+ and SO<sub>4</sub><sup>,,</sup>.</p>
+
+ <p>My friend Dr. Lewis Jones has given a very vivid picture of the
+ processes which go on in an electrolytic solution when an electric
+ current is passing. He compares an electrolytic cell to a ballroom, in
+ which are gyrating a number of dancing couples, representing the neutral
+ molecules, and a number of isolated ladies and gentlemen representing the
+ anions and cations respectively. If we suppose a mirror at one end of the
+ ballroom and a buffet at the other, the ladies will gradually accumulate
+ around the mirror, and the gentlemen around the buffet. Moreover, the
+ dancing couples will gradually be dissociated in order to follow this
+ movement.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Degree of Dissociation.</i>&mdash;The degree of dissociation is the
+ fraction of the molecules in the solution which have undergone
+ dissociation. Let <i>n</i> be the total number of molecules of the
+ solute, and <i>n&Prime;</i> the number of dissociated molecules. Then
+ <i>n&Prime;</i> / <i>n</i> = <i>a</i> will represent the degree of
+ dissociation. Let <i>k</i> be the number of ions into which each molecule
+ is split. Then <i>a</i> = <i>n&Prime;k</i> / <i>nk</i>, <i>i.e.</i> the
+ degree of dissociation is the ratio of the number of ions actually
+ present in a solution to the number which would be present if all the
+ molecules of the solute were dissociated.</p>
+
+ <p>Let <i>n&prime;</i> be the total number of particles present in a
+ solution <!-- Page 28 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page28"></a>{28}</span>containing <i>n</i> molecules, each of which
+ is composed of <i>k</i> ions. Then if <i>a</i> is the degree of
+ dissociation,</p>
+
+ <div class="poem">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <p><i>n&prime;</i> = <i>n</i> - <i>an</i> + <i>ank</i>,</p>
+ <p><i>n&prime;</i> = <i>n</i>[1 + <i>a</i> (<i>k</i> - 1)],</p>
+ <p><i>n&prime;</i> / <i>n</i> = 1 + <i>a</i> (<i>k</i> - 1) = <i>i</i>.</p>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+
+ <p>We thus obtain <i>i</i> the coefficient of dissociation, in terms of
+ the degree of dissociation <i>a</i> and the number of ions in each
+ molecule <i>k</i>.</p>
+
+ <p>If there is no dissociation, <i>i.e.</i> if <i>a</i> = 0, then
+ <i>n&prime;</i> = <i>n</i>, and <i>i</i> = 1. If all the molecules are
+ dissociated, <i>a</i> = 1, and <i>i</i> = <i>k</i>.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Faraday's Law.</i>&mdash;Faraday found that the quantity of
+ electricity required to liberate one gramme-molecule of any radical is
+ 96.537 coulombs for each valency of the radical.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Electrochemical Equivalent.</i>&mdash;The electrochemical
+ equivalent of a radical is the weight liberated by one coulomb of
+ electricity. It is equal to the molecular weight of the ion, divided by
+ 96.537 times its valency.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Electrolytic Conductivity.</i>&mdash;The conductivity of an
+ electrolyte is the inverse of its resistance. C = 1/R.</p>
+
+ <p>For a given difference of potential the conductivity of an electrolyte
+ is proportional to the number of ions in unit volume, the electrical
+ charge on each ion, and the velocity of the ions.</p>
+
+ <p><i>The specific conductivity</i> <span class="grk">&Delta;</span> of
+ an electrolyte is the conductivity of a cube of the solution, each face
+ of which is one square centimetre in area. The <i>molecular
+ conductivity</i> of an electrolyte is the conductivity of a solution
+ containing one gramme-molecule of the substance placed between two
+ parallel conducting plates, one centimetre apart. The molecular
+ conductivity is independent of the volume occupied by the gramme-molecule
+ of the solute, depending only on the degree of dissociation. The
+ molecular conductivity U is equal to the product of V, the volume of the
+ molecule, by <span class="grk">&Delta;</span>, its specific conductivity.
+ U = V<span class="grk">&Delta;</span>. Whence <span
+ class="grk">&Delta;</span> = U / V, <i>i.e.</i> the specific <!-- Page 29
+ --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page29"></a>{29}</span>conductivity
+ equals the molecular conductivity divided by the volume.</p>
+
+ <p>The conductivity of an electrolyte is proportional to the number of
+ ions in a volume of the solution containing one gramme-molecule. Let
+ M<sub>&infin;</sub> be the conductivity for complete dissociation and
+ M<sub>v</sub> the molecular conductivity at the volume V. Then</p>
+
+ <div class="poem">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <p>M<sub>v</sub> / M<sub>&infin;</sub> = <i>n&Prime;k</i> / <i>nk</i> = <i>n&Prime;</i> / <i>n</i> = <i>a</i>,</p>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+
+ <p>the degree of dissociation. This is Ostwald's law, which says that the
+ degree of dissociation is equal to the ratio of conductivity when the
+ gramme-molecule occupies a volume V, to its conductivity when the
+ solution is so dilute that dissociation is complete. Hence the degree of
+ dissociation may also be determined by comparing the electrical
+ conductivities of two solutions of different degrees of
+ concentration.</p>
+
+ <div class="figcenter" style="width:47%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig1.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig1.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 1." title="Fig. 1." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 1.</span>&mdash;Before the passage of the
+ current.
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="figcenter" style="width:46%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig2.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig2.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 2." title="Fig. 2." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 2.</span>&mdash;After the passage of the current.
+ </div>
+
+ <p><i>Velocity of the Ions.</i>&mdash;If the electrolytic cell is divided
+ into two segments by means of a porous diaphragm, we shall find after a
+ time an unequal distribution of the solute on the two sides. For
+ instance, with a solution of sulphate of copper, after the current has
+ passed for some time there will be a diminution of concentration in the
+ liquid on both sides of the diaphragm, but the loss will be very
+ unequally divided. Two-thirds of the loss of concentration will be on the
+ side of the negative electrode and only one-third on the positive side.
+ In 1853, Hittorf gave the following ingenious explanation of this
+ phenomenon:&mdash; <!-- Page 30 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page30"></a>{30}</span></p>
+
+ <p>Fig. 1 represents an electrolytic vessel containing a solution of
+ sulphate of copper, the vertical line indicating a porous partition
+ separating the vessel into two parts. Fig. 2 shows the same vessel after
+ the passage of the current. The acid radical has travelled twice as fast
+ as the metal. For each copper ion which has passed through the porous
+ plate towards the cathode two acid radicals have passed through it
+ towards the anode. Three ions have been liberated at either electrode,
+ but in consequence of the difference of velocity with which the positive
+ and the negative ions have travelled, the negative side of the vessel
+ contains only one molecule of copper sulphate and has lost two-thirds of
+ its molecular concentration, while the positive side contains two
+ molecules of copper sulphate and has only lost one-third of its
+ concentration. This proves clearly that the ions move in different
+ directions with different velocities. Let <i>u</i> be the velocity of the
+ anions, and <i>v</i> the velocity of the cations. Let <i>n</i> be the
+ loss of concentration at the cathode, and 1 - <i>n</i> the loss of
+ concentration at the anode. Then</p>
+
+ <div class="poem">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <p><i>u</i> / <i>v</i> = <i>n</i> / (1 - <i>n</i>),</p>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+
+ <p><i>i.e.</i> the loss of concentration at the cathode is to the loss of
+ concentration at the anode as the velocity of the anions is to that of
+ the cations. Hence by measuring the loss of concentration at the two
+ electrodes, we have an easy means of determining the comparative velocity
+ of different ions.</p>
+
+ <p>In 1876, Kohlrausch compared the conductivity of the chlorides,
+ bromides, and iodides of potassium, sodium, and ammonium respectively. He
+ found that altering the cation did not affect the <i>differences</i> of
+ conductivity between the three salts, thus showing that these differences
+ of conductivity were dependent on the nature of the anion only, and not
+ on the particular base with which it was combined. The difference of
+ conductivity between an iodide and a bromide, for example, is the same
+ whether potassium, sodium, or ammonium salts are compared. A similar
+ experiment has been made with a series of cations combined with various
+ anions. The difference of conductivity of the salts in the series is the
+ same whichever anion is used, <i>i.e.</i> the difference of conductivity
+ between potassium chloride and sodium chloride is the same as that
+ between <!-- Page 31 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page31"></a>{31}</span>potassium bromide and sodium bromide. Hence
+ we may conclude that the conductivity of any salt is an ionic
+ property.</p>
+
+ <p>Kohlrausch's law may be expressed by the formula <i>c</i> =
+ <i>d</i>(<i>u</i> + <i>v</i>), where <i>c</i> is the conductivity of the
+ salt, <i>d</i> the degree of dissociation, <i>i.e.</i> the fraction of
+ the electrolyte broken up into ions, and <i>u</i> and <i>v</i> the
+ velocity of the anions and cations respectively. When all the molecules
+ of the electrolyte are dissociated, <i>d</i> = 1, and the formula becomes
+ <i>c</i><sub>&infin;</sub> = <i>u</i> + <i>v</i>.</p>
+
+ <p>As we have already seen, a salt is formed by the union of a metal M
+ with an acid radical R. Potassium sulphate, K<sub>2</sub>SO<sub>4</sub>,
+ consists of the metal K<sub>2</sub> and the acid radical SO<sub>4</sub>.
+ Ammonium chloride, NH<sub>4</sub>Cl, consists of the basic radical
+ NH<sub>4</sub> and the acid radical Cl. The various acids may be
+ considered as salts of the metal hydrogen. Thus sulphuric acid,
+ H<sub>2</sub>SO<sub>4</sub>, is the sulphate of hydrogen. Bases may be
+ considered as salts with the hydroxyl group, OH, replacing the acid
+ radical. Thus potash, KOH, is the hydroxyl of potassium. The various
+ electrolytic combinations may be represented by the following
+ symbols:&mdash;</p>
+
+ <div class="poem">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <p>Salts = MR.</p>
+ <p>Acids = HR.</p>
+ <p>Bases = MOH.</p>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+
+ <p>The various chemical reactions of an electrolyte are all ionic
+ reactions, the chemical activity of an electrolytic solution being
+ proportional to its electric conductivity, <i>i.e.</i> the degree of
+ dissociation of its ions. The acidity of an electrolytic solution is due
+ to the presence of the dissociated ion H<sup>+</sup>, and its strength is
+ determined by the concentration of these free hydrogen ions. Hence the
+ greater the degree of dissociation the stronger the acid.</p>
+
+ <p>The basic character of a solution is determined by the presence of the
+ hydroxyl radical OH<sup>-</sup>. The greater the concentration of the
+ hydroxyl ions, <i>i.e.</i> the greater the dissociation, the stronger is
+ the base.</p>
+
+ <p>The ions H<sup>+</sup> and OH<sup>-</sup> are of special importance,
+ since they are the ions of water, H<sub>2</sub>O = H<sup>+</sup> +
+ OH<sup>-</sup>. The degree of <!-- Page 32 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page32"></a>{32}</span>dissociation of pure water is but small.
+ Water is, however, the most important of all the various agents in the
+ chemical reactions of life, since a large number of organic substances
+ are decomposed by water by a process of hydrolysis, and a vast number of
+ organic substances are but combinations of carbon with the ions
+ H<sup>+</sup> and OH<sup>-</sup>, their diversity being due to variations
+ in the relative proportions and grouping.</p>
+
+ <p><i>The Chemical, Therapeutic, and Toxic Actions of Ions.</i>&mdash;The
+ chemical, therapeutic, antiseptic, and toxic actions of electrolytic
+ solutions are almost exclusively due to ionization. Take, for instance, a
+ solution of nitrate of silver in which the addition of chlorine produces
+ a white precipitate of chloride of silver. This precipitate occurs only
+ when the solution added is one such as NaCl, where the chlorine is
+ present as the free ion Cl<sup>-</sup>. No such precipitate is produced
+ in a solution of chlorate of potassium or chloracetic acid, where the
+ chlorine is entangled in the complex ion ClO<sub>3</sub> or
+ C<sub>2</sub>H<sub>3</sub>ClO<sub>2</sub>.</p>
+
+ <p>Since, then, the toxic and pharmacological properties of an
+ electrolyte depend entirely on the ionic grouping, it behoves the
+ physician and the biologist to study the structure and grouping of the
+ ions in a molecule, rather than that of the atoms. Consider for a moment
+ the totally different properties of the phosphides and the phosphates.
+ The former are extremely toxic, while the latter are perfectly harmless.
+ There is not the slightest analogy between their actions on the living
+ organism. On the other hand, all the phosphides produce the same toxic
+ and therapeutic effects, whatever the cation with which they are united.
+ Their toxic properties are derived from the presence of the free
+ phosphorus ion P<sup>---</sup>. The phosphates contain phosphorus in
+ the same proportion as the phosphides, but this phosphorus is harmlessly
+ entangled in the complex ion PO<sub>4</sub><sup>---</sup>, whose
+ properties are absolutely different from those of the ion
+ P<sup>---</sup>.</p>
+
+ <p>The above considerations apply equally to the chlorides and chlorates,
+ the iodides and iodates, the sulphides and sulphates, and in general to
+ all chemical salts. <!-- Page 33 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page33"></a>{33}</span></p>
+
+ <p>The question has an intimate bearing on practical pharmacology. When
+ we prescribe a cacodylate or an amylarsinate, we are not prescribing an
+ arsenical treatment whose effects can be compared with those of an
+ arsenide, an arsenite, or an arsenate. This fact is sufficiently
+ indicated by the difference in the toxic doses of the different salts.
+ Each variety of arsenical ion has its own special physiological and
+ therapeutic properties. We do not expect to obtain the results of a
+ ferruginous treatment from the administration of a ferrocyanide or a
+ ferricyanide. Both contain iron, it is true, but neither possess the
+ properties of the cation Fe<sup>+++</sup>, but rather those of the
+ complex anion of which they form a part.</p>
+
+ <p>We have already said that most of the therapeutic, toxic, and caustic
+ actions of an electrolyte are due to ionic action, and the substances can
+ therefore have no toxic action unless they are dissociated. Many of the
+ solvents employed in medicine, such as alcohol, glycerine, vaseline, and
+ chloroform dissolve the electrolytes but do not dissociate them into
+ ions, and these solutions therefore do not conduct electricity. Such
+ solutions have no therapeutic action. With the absence of dissociation
+ all the ionic toxic and caustic effects also disappear entirely, and only
+ re-appear as the water of the tissue is able slowly to effect the
+ necessary dissociation.</p>
+
+ <p>Carbolic acid dissolved in glycerine is hardly caustic and but very
+ slightly toxic. We have met with several instances in which a
+ tablespoonful of carbolized glycerine, in equal parts, has been swallowed
+ without any ill effect, either caustic or toxic, whereas the same dose
+ dissolved in water would have been fatal. This absence of dissociation
+ has enabled the surgeon Mencière to inject carbolic and glycerine in
+ equal proportions into the larger joints, the part being subsequently
+ washed out with pure alcohol. Thus by employing vaseline, oil, or
+ glycerine as a solvent, and avoiding the access of water, we are able to
+ use electrolytic antiseptics in very concentrated form. Their action is
+ brought out very slowly, as the water of the organism effects the
+ necessary dissociation of the electrolyte. <!-- Page 34 --><span
+ class="pagenum"><a name="page34"></a>{34}</span></p>
+
+ <p>Since all chemical, toxic, and therapeutic actions are ionic, they are
+ proportional to the degree of ionic concentration, <i>i.e.</i> to the
+ number of ions in a given volume. The only point of importance, that
+ which determines their activity, whether chemical or therapeutic, is the
+ degree of ionization or dissociation. For example, all acids have the
+ same cation H<sup>+</sup>. They have all identical properties, but they
+ differ widely in the intensity of their action. There are weak acids such
+ as acetic acid, and strong acids like sulphuric acid. The stronger acids
+ are those which are more thoroughly dissociated, and in which the ion
+ H<sup>+</sup> is very concentrated; whereas the feeble acids are but
+ slightly dissociated, so that the ion H<sup>+</sup> is less
+ concentrated.</p>
+
+ <p>Paul and Krönig have shown that the bactericidal action of different
+ salts also varies with their degree of dissociation, <i>i.e.</i> with the
+ concentration of the active ions. They made a series of observations on
+ the bactericidal action of various salts of mercury, the bichloride, the
+ bibromide, and the bicyanide, on the spores of <i>Bacillus anthracis</i>.
+ The following results were obtained from a comparison of solutions
+ containing 1 gramme-molecule of the salt in 64 litres of water. With the
+ bichloride solution, after exposure to the solution for twenty minutes,
+ only 7 colonies of the bacillus were developed. After exposure to a
+ similar solution of the bibromide the number of colonies was 34. The
+ antiseptic action of the bichloride was therefore five times as great as
+ that of the bibromide. The bicyanide of mercury, however, even when four
+ times as concentrated, permitted the growth of an enormous number of
+ colonies, showing that it had no appreciable antiseptic action whatever.
+ Nevertheless, the proportion of Hg is the same in all the solutions, and
+ if there were any difference one would naturally expect that the ion
+ Cy<sup>-</sup> would be more toxic than Cl<sup>-</sup> or Br<sup>-</sup>.
+ The real condition which varies in these solutions and determines their
+ activity is the degree of dissociation. The whole of the antiseptic
+ property resides in the ion Hg<sup>++</sup>. This ion is very <!-- Page
+ 35 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page35"></a>{35}</span>concentrated
+ in the highly dissociated solution HgCl<sub>2</sub>, less concentrated in
+ the less ionized solution HgBr<sub>2</sub>, and exceedingly dilute in the
+ HgCy<sub>2</sub>, which is hardly ionized at all.</p>
+
+ <p>What is true of the bactericidal action of the salts of mercury is
+ equally true of their therapeutic effect. It is a great mistake to
+ estimate the medicinal activity of a solution of a salt of mercury, or
+ indeed of any electrolytic solution, simply by its degree of molecular
+ concentration. The important point is the degree of dissociation, which
+ is the only true measure of its activity. In the intramuscular injection
+ of mercury salts it is by no means a matter of indifference what salt we
+ employ. A salt should be used such as the bichloride or the biniodide,
+ which is easily dissociated. Other salts are often employed because they
+ occasion less pain at the site of injection; but the pain is a sign of
+ the degree of activity of the preparation. The pain, it is true, may be
+ avoided by using a salt which is less easily dissociated, or in which the
+ mercury is bound up in a complex ion, but by so doing we diminish the
+ efficacy of the remedy. It is moreover quite easy to diminish, or even
+ entirely to suppress, the pain, by using a very dilute solution of an
+ active ionized salt. A one-half per cent. or even one-quarter per cent.
+ solution of the bichloride or biniodide of mercury may be injected very
+ slowly in sufficient quantity without producing the slightest discomfort.
+ Local action depends entirely on ionic concentration. One drop of pure
+ sulphuric acid will destroy the skin, whereas the same amount if diluted
+ in a tumblerful of water will furnish a refreshing drink.</p>
+
+ <p><br style="clear:both" /></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p><!-- Page 36 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page36"></a>{36}</span></p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER IV</h3>
+
+<p class="cenhead">COLLOIDS</p>
+
+ <p>As we have already seen, living organisms are formed essentially of
+ liquids. These liquids are solutions of crystallizable substances or
+ crystalloids, and non-crystallizable substances or colloids&mdash;a
+ classification which we owe to Graham.</p>
+
+ <p>The liquids are the most important constituents of a living organism,
+ since they are the seat of all the chemical and physical phenomena of
+ life. The junction of two liquids of different concentration is the arena
+ in which takes place both the chemical transformation of matter and the
+ correlative transformation of energy. In a former chapter we have passed
+ in review the class of crystalloids, we will now turn our attention to
+ the characteristic properties of colloids.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Colloids.</i>&mdash;Colloids differ from crystalloids in that they
+ do not form crystals from solution, being completely amorphous when in
+ the solid state. The solution of a colloid solidifies in the same form
+ which it possessed in the liquid state, the solvent being enclosed in the
+ meshes of a sort of network formed by the solute. This form is
+ approximately retained even after the water has evaporated by drying, the
+ passage from the liquid state of solution to the solid state being
+ effected through a series of intermediary states, such as a clot,
+ coagulum, or jelly. This passage from the state of solution into a state
+ of jelly is called coagulation. Some colloids, such as gelatine,
+ coagulate with cold; while others, such as egg-albumin, coagulate with
+ heat. Some, like the caseine of milk, require the addition of certain
+ chemical substances to set up coagulation; while still others, such as
+ the fibrin of blood, appear to coagulate spontaneously. The physical
+ phenomena of <!-- Page 37 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page37"></a>{37}</span>coagulation are still but little understood.
+ In some cases it is a reversible phenomenon, thus gelatine coagulated by
+ cold is redissolved by heat; whereas with other colloids the process is
+ irreversible, albumin coagulated by heat is not redissolved on
+ cooling.</p>
+
+ <p>Colloids in a state of coagulation have a vacuolar or sponge-like
+ structure. The solvent is imprisoned in the vacuoles of the clot, and is
+ expelled little by little by its retraction. Colloids diffused in water
+ are usually called colloidal solutions, but they are not true solutions.
+ Such a pseudo-solution of a colloid is called a "sol," while a colloid in
+ a state of coagulation is called a "gel." Colloidal solutions spread but
+ little, diffuse very slowly in the liquids of the body, and cannot
+ penetrate organic membranes.</p>
+
+ <p>Colloidal solutions diffuse light, unlike crystalloid solutions, which
+ are transparent. We all know how the trajectory of a beam of sunlight
+ through a darkened room is rendered visible by the particles of dust. In
+ the same way if a colloidal solution is illuminated by a transverse ray
+ of light, the light is diffused by the molecules of the colloid in
+ semi-solution, and the liquid appears faintly illuminated on a dark
+ background. The light diffused by a colloidal solution is polarized,
+ which shows that it is reflected light,</p>
+
+ <p>Siedentopf and Sigmondy have applied this principle of lateral
+ illumination on a dark background to the construction of the
+ ultra-microscope. With the aid of this instrument we may not only see,
+ but count the particles in a colloidal solution, which is in reality
+ merely a pseudo-solution or suspension, in contradistinction to the true
+ solution of a crystalloid.</p>
+
+ <p>Colloidal solutions possess only a very feeble osmotic pressure. The
+ lowering of the freezing point and the other corresponding constants are
+ also quite insignificant. This arises from the fact that the molecules of
+ a colloid are extremely large when compared with those of a crystalloid.
+ For example let us take colloidal substance whose molecular weight is
+ 2000. A solution containing 40 grammes per litre would have an osmotic
+ pressure only one-fiftieth of that of a <!-- Page 38 --><span
+ class="pagenum"><a name="page38"></a>{38}</span>solution of similar
+ strength of a crystalloid whose molecular weight was 40.</p>
+
+ <p>Not only so, but on measuring the molecular concentration, the osmotic
+ pressure, and the other constants of a colloidal solution, we find values
+ even lower than those which we should expect from a consideration of its
+ molecular weight. This is probably due to the tendency of a colloid to
+ polymerization, i.e. to form groups or associations of molecules.
+ Suppose, for instance, that the molecules of a colloidal solution are
+ aggregated into groups of ten. Since each group plays the part of a
+ simple molecule, the osmotic pressure will be ten times less than that
+ corresponding to the quantity of the solute present. Such a group of
+ molecules is called by Naegeli a "micella."</p>
+
+ <p>Similar phenomena of aggregation may be observed in the molecules of
+ many inorganic substances. The molecule of iodine, for example, is
+ monatomic at 1200° C., but becomes diatomic at the ordinary temperature.
+ Sulphur at 860° C. is a gas with a vapour density of 2.2, while at 500°
+ C. its vapour density rises to 6.6. In both of these cases two or more
+ molecules of the element have been condensed into one as a result of the
+ fall of temperature.</p>
+
+ <p>We frequently find that two successive cryoscopic observations on the
+ freezing point of the same colloidal solution will vary. This is due to
+ the extreme sensitiveness of the micellæ, which absorb or abandon their
+ extra molecules under the slightest influence. This mobility in the
+ constitution of the micellæ appears to be one of the principal causes of
+ the peculiar properties of colloidal solutions.</p>
+
+ <p>The phenomenon of polymerization appears to be reversible. The micellæ
+ are formed under certain conditions, and are disintegrated when these
+ conditions are removed. The osmotic pressure varies in the same manner,
+ diminishing with polymerization and augmenting with the disintegration of
+ the micellæ. One may easily understand what an important rôle is played
+ by this alternate polymerization and disintegration in the phenomena of
+ life.</p>
+
+ <p>Most colloidal substances are precipitated from their solutions by the
+ addition of very small quantities of electrolytic <!-- Page 39 --><span
+ class="pagenum"><a name="page39"></a>{39}</span>solutions.
+ Non-electrolytic solutions do not appear to provoke this precipitation.
+ This is not a chemical action, for an exceedingly small quantity of an
+ electrolyte is able to precipitate an indefinite quantity of the colloid.
+ The precipitation is probably due to the electric charges carried by the
+ dissociated ions of the electrolytes.</p>
+
+ <p>When an electric current is passed through a colloid solution, the
+ course of the molecules of the colloid is sometimes towards the cathode
+ and sometimes towards the anode, according to the nature of the colloid
+ and of the solvent. This displacement would appear to indicate a
+ difference of electric potential between the molecules of the colloid and
+ those of the solvent. Hardy has shown that in an alkaline solution the
+ molecules of albumin travel towards the anode, while in an acid solution
+ they travel towards the cathode.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Metallic Colloids.</i>&mdash;Carey Lea and afterwards Credé
+ succeeded in obtaining silver in colloidal solution by ordinary chemical
+ means. Professor Bredig has introduced a more general method of obtaining
+ a number of metals in colloidal solutions in a state of great purity. He
+ causes an electric arc to pass between two rods of the metal immersed in
+ distilled water. The cathode is thus pulverized into a very fine powder
+ which rests in suspension in the liquid, constituting a colloidal
+ solution. Bredig has in this way prepared sols of platinum, palladium,
+ iridium, silver, and cadmium.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Catalytic Properties of Colloids.</i>&mdash;Catalysis is the
+ property possessed by certain bodies of initiating chemical reaction. The
+ mass of the catalyzing body has no definite proportion to that of the
+ substances entering into the reaction, and the appearance of the
+ catalyzer is in no way altered by the reaction.</p>
+
+ <p>Ostwald has shown that catalysis consists essentially in the
+ acceleration or retardation of chemical reactions which would take place
+ without the action of the catalyzer, but more slowly.</p>
+
+ <p>Catalytic reactions are very numerous in chemistry. The inversion of
+ sugar by acids, the etherization of alcohol by sulphuric acid, the
+ decomposition of hydrogen peroxide by <!-- Page 40 --><span
+ class="pagenum"><a name="page40"></a>{40}</span>platinum black are all
+ instances of catalysis. Fermentation by means of a soluble ferment or
+ diastase, a phenomenon which may almost be called vital, is also a
+ catalytic action. The action of pepsin, of the pancreatic ferment, of
+ zymase, and of other similar ferments has a great analogy with the purely
+ physical phenomenon of catalysis. The diastases are all colloids, and so
+ are many other catalyzers.</p>
+
+ <p>A catalyzer is a stimulus which excites a transformation of energy.
+ The catalyzer plays the same rôle in a chemical transformation as does
+ the minimal exciting force which sets free the accumulation of potential
+ energy previous to its transformation into kinetic energy. A catalyzer is
+ the friction of the match which sets free the chemical energy of the
+ powder magazine.</p>
+
+ <p>Bredig has studied the catalytic decomposition of hydrogen peroxide by
+ metallic colloids prepared by his electric method. He found that 1
+ atom-gramme of colloidal platinum gives a sensible catalytic effect when
+ diluted with 70 million litres of water. Caustic soda and other chemical
+ substances inhibit the catalytic action of colloidal platinum in the same
+ way as they inhibit the fermenting action of diastase. The curve of
+ decomposition of hydrogen peroxide by colloidal platinum may be compared
+ with the curve of fermentation by emulsin. Both are equally affected by
+ the addition of an alkali. Many other chemical and physical agents have a
+ similar inhibitory action on the catalysis of colloidal metals and on
+ diastasic fermentation. Thus a mere trace of sulphuretted hydrogen or
+ hydrocyanic acid will paralyse the action of a colloidal metal, just as
+ it does that of a ferment. This is what Bredig calls the poisoning of
+ metallic ferments.</p>
+
+ <p>We may hope that the further study of catalysis, a purely
+ physico-chemical phenomenon, may throw more light on the mechanism of
+ diastasic fermentation, which is essentially a vital reaction.</p>
+
+ <p>It must not be forgotten that all classification is artificial and
+ arbitrary, and only to be used as long as it facilitates study. This
+ observation is particularly applicable to the classification of
+ substances into crystalloids and colloids. <!-- Page 41 --><span
+ class="pagenum"><a name="page41"></a>{41}</span>There is no sharp line
+ between the two groups, the passage is gradual, and it is impossible to
+ say where one group ends and the other begins. Many colloids such as
+ hæmoglobin are crystallizable, and many crystallizable substances are
+ coagulable. Many substances appear at one time in the crystalloid state
+ and at another time in the colloidal state, so that instead of dividing
+ substances into colloids and crystalloids, we should rather consider
+ these expressions as denoting different phases assumed by the same
+ substance.</p>
+
+ <p>In order to define clearly our various classes and divisions, we are
+ apt to exaggerate slight differences of properties or composition. We say
+ that colloids have no osmotic pressure, whereas in fact the osmotic
+ pressure of the colloids though feeble plays a very important part in the
+ phenomena of life.</p>
+
+ <p>So in other departments of science&mdash;a factor which is almost
+ infinitesimal may yet exercise a vast influence on the results. It is by
+ infinitesimal variations of pressure, a thousandth of a millimetre or
+ less, that we obtain the various degrees of penetration in the Röntgen
+ rays.</p>
+
+ <p>The division into solutions and pseudo-solutions or suspensions is
+ also an arbitrary one. A true solution is also a suspension of the
+ molecules of the solute. There is no essential difference between a
+ solution and a suspension, but only a difference in the size of the
+ molecules, or agglomerations of molecules, in one case so small as to be
+ transparent, and in the other case just big enough to diffuse light.
+ There are moreover many properties common to colloidal solutions and
+ suspensions of fine powders, such as kaolin, mastic, charcoal, or Indian
+ ink. These particles in suspension are precipitated by solutions of
+ electrolytes in a manner similar to the coagulation of colloids.</p>
+
+ <p>The surface of every liquid is covered by a very thin layer, a sort of
+ membrane slightly differentiated from the rest of the liquid. This
+ membrane may be a chemical one, a pellicular precipitate like that which
+ is formed by the contact of two membranogenous liquids. On the other
+ hand, the membrane may not differ from the subjacent liquid in chemical
+ composition, but only in physical properties. If we <!-- Page 42 --><span
+ class="pagenum"><a name="page42"></a>{42}</span>consider the molecules in
+ the middle of a liquid, each molecule is subjected to the cohesive
+ attraction of molecules on every side, attractions which neutralize one
+ another. At the surface of the liquid, however, there are quite other
+ conditions of equilibrium. There each molecule is drawn downwards towards
+ the centre of the liquid, and there is no compensating attraction in an
+ opposite direction. The resultant pressure is normal to the surface of
+ the liquid, and is mechanically equivalent to an elastic membrane which
+ tends to diminish the surface, and hence the volume of the liquid. We may
+ therefore regard this surface tension as acting the part of a veritable
+ physical membrane.</p>
+
+ <p>There is a still further differentiation of the surface of a liquid.
+ When the liquid is not a simple one, but complex as in a solution, we
+ find that the concentration of the solute is greater at the surface than
+ in the interior. This is the so-called phenomenon of "adsorption," which
+ is another cause for the production of a physical membrane covering the
+ surface of a liquid.</p>
+
+ <p>Substances in a colloidal state have a great tendency to form these
+ chemical or physical membranes at the point of contact between the
+ colloidal solute and the solvent. This is probably the reason why the
+ coagulum of a colloidal liquid usually presents a vacuolar or spongy
+ structure.</p>
+
+ <p><br style="clear:both" /></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p><!-- Page 43 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page43"></a>{43}</span></p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER V</h3>
+
+<p class="cenhead">DIFFUSION AND OSMOSIS</p>
+
+ <p><i>Diffusion and Osmosis.</i>&mdash;If we place a lump of sugar in the
+ bottom of a glass of water, it will dissolve, and spread by slow degrees
+ equally throughout the whole volume of the liquid. If we pour a
+ concentrated solution of sulphate of copper into the bottom of a glass
+ vessel, and carefully pour over it a layer of clear water, the liquids,
+ at first sharply separated by their difference of density, will gradually
+ mix, so as to form a solution having exactly the same composition in all
+ parts of the jar. The process whereby the sugar and the copper sulphate
+ spread uniformly through the whole mass of the liquid in opposition to
+ gravity is called Diffusion. This diffusion of the solute is a phenomenon
+ exactly analogous to the expansion of a gas. It is the expression of
+ osmotic pressure, or rather of the difference of the osmotic pressure of
+ the solute in different parts of the vessel. The molecules of the solute
+ move from a place where the osmotic pressure is greater towards a
+ position where the osmotic pressure is less. The water molecules on the
+ other hand pass from positions where the osmotic pressure of the solute
+ is less towards positions where it is greater. As a consequence of this
+ double circulation the osmotic pressure tends to become equalized in all
+ parts of the vessel.</p>
+
+ <p>Diffusion appears to be the fundamental physical phenomenon of life.
+ It is going on continually in the tissues of all living beings, and a
+ study of the laws of diffusion and osmosis is therefore absolutely
+ necessary for a just conception of vital phenomena.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Coefficient of Diffusion.</i>&mdash;The coefficient of diffusion
+ has <!-- Page 44 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page44"></a>{44}</span>been defined by Fick as the quantity of a
+ solute which in one second traverses each square centimetre of the cross
+ section of a column of liquid 1 centimetre long, between the opposite
+ sides of which there is unit difference of concentration. Nernst in his
+ definition substitutes "unit difference of osmotic pressure" for "unit
+ difference of concentration."</p>
+
+ <p>Until recently it was generally believed that diffusion took place in
+ colloids and plasmas just as in pure water. This is, however, by no means
+ the case: the differences are considerable. When a solute is introduced
+ into a colloidal solution, the greater the concentration of the colloid
+ the slower will be the diffusion. This may be shown by a simple
+ experiment. Several glass plates are prepared, by spreading on each a
+ solution of gelatine of different concentration, to which a few drops of
+ phenol phthalein have been added. If now a drop of an alkaline solution
+ be placed on each plate, we can see that the drop diffuses more slowly
+ through the more concentrated gelatine solution, since the presence of
+ the alkali is rendered visible by the coloration of the phenol phthalein.
+ A similar demonstration may be made by allowing drops of acid to diffuse
+ through solutions of gelatine made slightly alkaline and coloured with
+ phenol phthalein. In general, we find on experiment that when similar
+ drops of any coloured or colouring solution are left for an equal time on
+ plates of gelatine of different degrees of concentration, the greater the
+ concentration of the gelatine the smaller will be the circle of
+ coloration obtained.</p>
+
+ <p>We may show that the rapidity of diffusion diminishes as the
+ gelatinous concentration increases, by another experiment. If we put side
+ by side on our gelatine plate a drop of sulphate of copper and another of
+ ferrocyanide of potassium, the point of contact of the two fluids will be
+ sharply marked by a line of precipitate. We find that under similar
+ conditions the time between the sowing of the drops and the formation of
+ this line of precipitate is longer when the gelatine is more
+ concentrated.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Osmosis.</i>&mdash;In 1748, l'Abbé Nollet discovered that when a
+ pig's bladder filled with alcohol was plunged into water, the <!-- Page
+ 45 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page45"></a>{45}</span>water passed
+ into the bladder more rapidly than the alcohol passed out; the bladder
+ became distended, the internal pressure increased, and the liquid spirted
+ out when the bladder was pricked by a pin. This passage of certain
+ substances in solution through an animal membrane is called Osmosis, and
+ membranes which exhibit this property are called osmotic membranes.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Precipitated Membranes.</i>&mdash;In 1867, Traube of Breslau
+ discovered that osmotic membranes could be made artificially. Certain
+ chemical precipitates such as copper ferrocyanide can form membranes
+ having properties analogous to those of osmotic membranes. With these
+ precipitated membranes Traube made a number of interesting experiments.
+ These have lately been collected in the volume of his memoirs published
+ by his son.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Osmotic Membranes.</i>&mdash;Osmotic membranes were formerly called
+ semi-permeable membranes, being regarded as membranes which allow water
+ to pass through them, but arrest the passage of the solute. This
+ definition is inexact, since no membrane permeable to water is absolutely
+ impermeable to the solutes. All we can say is that certain membranes are
+ more permeable to water than to the substances in solution, and are
+ moreover very unequally permeable to the various substances in solution.
+ As a rule a membrane is much more permeable to a solute whose molecule is
+ of small dimensions. Molecules of salt, for instance, pass through such a
+ membrane much more quickly than do those of sugar. The term "osmotic
+ membrane" should therefore in all cases replace that of "semi-permeable
+ membrane."</p>
+
+ <p>Osmotic membranes behave exactly like colloids. The resistance which
+ they oppose to the passage of different substances varies with the nature
+ of the liquid or solute concerned. There is no real difference between
+ the passage of a solution through an osmotic membrane and its diffusion
+ through a colloid. The protoplasm of a living organism, being a colloid,
+ acts exactly like an osmotic membrane so far as regards the distribution
+ of solutions and substances in solution. <!-- Page 46 --><span
+ class="pagenum"><a name="page46"></a>{46}</span></p>
+
+ <p>The diffusion of molecules through a colloid, a plasma, or a membrane
+ is governed by laws precisely analogous to Ohm's law, which governs the
+ transport of electricity. The intensity or rapidity of diffusion is
+ proportional to the difference of osmotic pressure, and varies inversely
+ with the resistance.</p>
+
+ <p>In the case of molecular diffusion, however, the rapidity of diffusion
+ depends also on the size and nature of the molecules of the diffusing
+ substance. The theory of the resistance of the various plasmas and
+ membranes to diffusion has been but little understood; we can discover
+ hardly any reference to it in the literature of the subject.</p>
+
+ <p>The laws of diffusion apply equally to the diffusion of ions. Nernst
+ has shown that there is a difference of electric potential at the surface
+ of contact of two electrolytic solutions of different degrees of
+ concentration. Both the positive and negative ions of the more
+ concentrated solution pass into the less concentrated solution, but the
+ ions of one sign will pass more rapidly than those of the other sign,
+ because being smaller, they meet with less resistance.</p>
+
+ <p>The resistance of the medium plays a most important part in all the
+ phenomena of diffusion. When two solutions of different concentration
+ come into contact, the interchange of molecules and ions which occurs is
+ unequal owing to the differences in resistance. Hence both solutions
+ become modified not only in concentration but also in composition. It has
+ long been known that diffusion can cause the decomposition of certain
+ easily decomposed substances, and it would appear probable that diffusion
+ is also capable of producing new chemical combinations.</p>
+
+ <p>The separation of the liberated ions in consequence of the unequal
+ resistance which they meet with in the medium they traverse often
+ determines chemical reaction. This ionic separation is a fertile agent of
+ chemical transformation in the living organism, and may be the
+ determinant cause in those chemical reactions which constitute the
+ phenomena of nutrition.</p>
+
+ <p>When different liquids come into contact there are two distinct series
+ of phenomena, those due to osmotic pressure and those due to differences
+ of chemical composition. Even <!-- Page 47 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page47"></a>{47}</span>with isotonic solutions there will be a
+ transfer of the solutes if these are of different chemical constitution.
+ Take, for instance, two isotonic solutions, one of salt and another of
+ sugar. When these are brought into contact there is no transference of
+ water from one solution to the other, but there is a transference of the
+ solutes. In the salt solution the osmotic pressure of the sugar is zero.
+ Hence the difference of osmotic pressure of the sugar in the two
+ solutions will cause the molecules of sugar to diffuse into the salt
+ solution. For the same reason the salt will diffuse into the sugar
+ solution.</p>
+
+ <p>A disregard of this fact, that a solute will always pass from a
+ solution where its osmotic pressure is high, into <span
+ class="correction" title="Original reads 'on'.">one</span> where its
+ osmotic pressure is low, is a frequent source of error. Thus it is said
+ to be contrary to the laws of osmosis that solutes should pass from the
+ blood, with its low osmotic pressure, into the urine, where the general
+ osmotic pressure is higher; the more so because in consequence of the
+ exchange the osmotic pressure of the urine is still further increased.
+ Such an exchange, it is argued, is contrary to the ordinary laws of
+ physics, and can therefore only be accomplished by some occult vital
+ action. This, however, is not the fact, as is proved by experiment.</p>
+
+ <p>Consider an inextensible osmotic cell containing a solution of sugar,
+ the walls of the cell being impermeable to sugar but permeable to salt.
+ Let us plunge such a cell into a solution of salt, which has a lower
+ osmotic pressure than the sugar solution. Since the walls of the cell are
+ inextensible, the quantity of water in the cell cannot increase. The
+ salt, however, will pass into the cell, since the osmotic pressure of the
+ salt is greater on the outside than on the inside, and the walls are
+ permeable to the molecules of salt. This passage will continue until the
+ osmotic pressure of the salt is equal inside and outside the cell; at the
+ same time the total osmotic pressure within the cell will have increased,
+ in spite of its being originally greater than the osmotic pressure
+ outside.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Plasmolysis.</i>&mdash;We all know that a cut flower soon dries
+ <!-- Page 48 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page48"></a>{48}</span>up
+ and fades. When, however, we place the shrivelled flower in water, the
+ contracted protoplasm swells up again and refills the cells, which become
+ turgid, and the flower revives. This phenomenon is due to the fact that
+ vegetable protoplasm holds in solution substances like sugars and salts
+ which have a high osmotic pressure. Consequently water has a tendency to
+ penetrate the cellular walls of plants, to distend the cells and render
+ them turgescent. De Vries has used this phenomenon for the measurement of
+ osmotic tension. He employs for this purpose the turgid cells of the
+ plant <i>Tradescantia discolor</i>. The cells are placed under the
+ microscope and irrigated with a solution of nitrate of soda. On gradually
+ increasing the concentration of the solution there comes a moment when
+ the protoplasmic mass is seen to contract and to detach itself from the
+ walls of the cell. This phenomenon, which is known as plasmolysis, occurs
+ at the moment when the solution of nitrate of soda begins to abstract
+ water from the protoplasmic juice, <i>i.e.</i> when the osmotic tension
+ of the nitrate of soda becomes greater than that of the protoplasmic
+ liquid. So long as the osmotic tension of the soda solution is less than
+ that of the protoplasm, there will be a tendency for water to penetrate
+ the cell wall and swell the protoplasm. When the osmotic tension of the
+ solution which bathes the cell is identical with that of the cellular
+ juice, there is no change in the volume of the protoplasm. In this way we
+ are able to determine the osmotic pressure of any solution. We have only
+ to dilute the solution till it has no effect on the protoplasm of the
+ vegetable cells. Since the osmotic tension of this protoplasm is known,
+ we can easily calculate the osmotic tension of the solution from the
+ degree of dilution required.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Red Blood Corpuscles as Indicators of Isotony.</i>&mdash;In 1886,
+ Hamburger showed that the weakest solutions of various substances which
+ would allow the deposition of the red blood cells, without being dilute
+ enough to dissolve the hæmoglobin, were isotonic to one another, and also
+ to the blood serum, and to the contents of the blood corpuscles. This is
+ Hamburger's method of determining the osmotic <!-- Page 49 --><span
+ class="pagenum"><a name="page49"></a>{49}</span>tension of a liquid. The
+ diluted solution is gradually increased in strength until, when a drop of
+ blood is added to it, the corpuscles are just precipitated, and no
+ hæmoglobin is dissolved.</p>
+
+ <p><i>The Hæmatocrite.</i>&mdash;In 1891, Hedin devised an instrument for
+ determining the influence of different solutions on the red blood
+ corpuscles. This instrument, the hæmatocrite, is a graduated pipette,
+ designed to measure the volume of the globules separated by
+ centrifugation from a given volume of blood under the influence of the
+ liquid whose osmotic pressure is to be measured. The method depends on
+ the principle that solutions isotonic to the blood corpuscles and to the
+ blood serum will not alter the volume of the blood corpuscles, whereas
+ hypertonic solutions decrease that volume.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Action of Solutions of Different Degrees of Concentration on Living
+ Cells</i>.&mdash;We have just seen that a living cell, whether vegetable
+ or animal, is not altered in volume when immersed in an isotonic solution
+ that does not act upon it chemically. When immersed in a hypertonic
+ solution, it retracts; in a slightly hypotonic solution it absorbs water
+ and becomes turgescent, while in a very hypotonic solution it swells up
+ and bursts. In a hypertonic solution the red blood cells retract and fall
+ to the bottom of the glass, the rapidity with which they are deposited
+ depending on the amount of retraction. In a hypotonic solution they swell
+ up and burst, the hæmoglobin dissolving in the liquid and colouring it
+ red. This is the phenomenon of hæmatolysis. According to Hamburger, the
+ serum of blood may be considerably diluted with water before producing
+ hæmatolysis. Experimenting with the blood of the frog, he found that the
+ globules remained intact in size and shape when irrigated with a salt
+ solution containing .64 per cent. of salt, this solution being isotonic
+ with the frog's blood serum. On the other hand, they did not begin to
+ lose their hæmoglobin till the proportion of salt was reduced to below
+ .22 per cent. Thus frog's serum may be diluted with 200 per cent. of
+ water before producing hæmatolysis. In mammals the blood corpuscles
+ remain invariable in a salt solution of about .9 per cent., and begin to
+ lose their <!-- Page 50 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page50"></a>{50}</span>hæmoglobin approximately in a .6 per cent.
+ solution. A solution of .9 per cent. of NaCl is therefore isotonic to the
+ contents of the red blood corpuscles, to the serum of the blood, and to
+ the cells of the tissues. It by no means follows that the cells of the
+ blood and tissues undergo no change when irrigated with a .9 per cent.
+ solution of chloride of sodium. They do not lose or gain water, it is
+ true, and they retain their volume and their specific gravity. But they
+ do undergo a chemical alteration, by the exchange of their electrolytes
+ with those of the solution. Hamburger has pointed out that in mammals the
+ shape of the red corpuscles is altered in every liquid other than the
+ blood serum; even in the lymph of the same animal there is a diminution
+ of the long diameter, and an increase of the shorter diameter, while the
+ concave discs become more spherical.</p>
+
+ <p>All the cells of a living organism are extremely sensitive to slight
+ differences of osmotic pressure&mdash;the cells of epithelial tissue and
+ of the nervous system as well as the blood cells. For instance, the
+ introduction of too concentrated a saline solution into the nasal cavity
+ will set up rhinitis and destroy the terminations of the olfactory
+ nerves. Pure water, on the other hand, is itself a caustic. There is a
+ spring at Gastein, in the Tyrol, which is called the poison spring, the
+ "Gift-Brunnen." The water of this spring is almost absolutely pure, hence
+ it has a tendency to distend and burst the epithelium cells of the
+ digestive tract, and thus gives rise to the deleterious effects which
+ have given it its name. Ordinary drinking water is never pure, it
+ contains in solution salts from the soil and gases from the atmosphere.
+ These give it an osmotic pressure which prevents the deleterious effects
+ of a strongly hypotonic liquid. During a surgical operation it is of the
+ first importance not to injure the living surfaces by flooding them with
+ strongly hypertonic or hypotonic solutions. This precaution becomes still
+ more important when foreign liquids are brought into contact with the
+ delicate cells of the large surfaces of the serous membranes. Gardeners
+ are well aware of the noxious influence of a low osmotic pressure. They
+ water the soil around the roots of a plant, so that the water may take up
+ <!-- Page 51 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page51"></a>{51}</span>some of the salts from the soil before being
+ absorbed by the plant. Pure water poured over the heart of a delicate
+ plant may burst its cells owing to its low osmotic pressure. In many
+ medical and surgical applications, on the other hand, a low osmotic
+ pressure is of advantage. Thus, in order to remove the dry crusts of
+ eczema and impetigo, the most efficacious application is a compress of
+ cotton wool soaked in warm distilled water. Under the influence of such a
+ hypotonic solution the dry cells rapidly swell up, burst, and are
+ dissolved.</p>
+
+ <p>Cooking is also very much a question of osmotic pressure. If salt is
+ put into the water in which potatoes and other vegetables are boiled,
+ osmosis is set up and a current of water passes from the vegetable cells
+ to the salt water. The cellular tissue of the vegetable becomes
+ contracted and dried, and the membranes become adherent, the vegetable
+ loses weight and becomes difficult of digestion, in consequence of its
+ hard and waxy consistency, which prevents the action of the digestive
+ juices. Vegetables should be cooked in soft water, and should be salted
+ after cooking. When so treated, a potato absorbs water, the cells swell
+ up, the skin bursts, the grains of starch also swell up and burst, and
+ the pulp becomes more friable. The digestive juice is thus able to
+ penetrate the different parts of the vegetable rapidly, and digestion is
+ facilitated. Any one can easily prove for himself that a potato boiled in
+ salt water diminishes in weight, whilst its weight increases when it is
+ cooked in soft water.</p>
+
+ <p>The method of cryoscopy is also of considerable service in forensic
+ medicine. As shown by Carrara, the cryoscopy of the blood is an important
+ aid in determining the question whether a body found in the water was
+ thrown in before or after death. In the former case the concentration of
+ the blood will be much diminished. In certain experiments on dogs the
+ cryoscopic examination of the blood showed a freezing point of -.6° C.
+ The dog was then drowned, when the freezing point of the blood in the
+ left ventricle was increased to -.29° C., and that in the right ventricle
+ to -.42° C. On the other hand, when a dog was killed before being thrown
+ into the water, the <!-- Page 52 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page52"></a>{52}</span>osmotic pressure of the blood was hardly
+ decreased even after an immersion of 72 hours. In the case of persons or
+ animals drowned in sea water, a similar alteration of the point of
+ congelation is observed, but in the reverse direction. In this case the
+ osmotic pressure is raised considerably in those who are drowned, whereas
+ no such rise is observed in those who are thrown into the sea after
+ death.</p>
+
+ <p>The circulation of the sap in plants and trees is also in great part
+ due to osmotic pressure. The aspiration of the water from the soil is due
+ to the intracellular osmotic pressure in the roots, which causes the sap
+ to rise in the stem of a plant as it would in the tube of a manometer.
+ From a knowledge of the osmotic pressure of the intracellular liquid of
+ the roots, we may calculate the height to which the sap can be raised in
+ the trunk of a tree, <i>i.e.</i> the maximum height to which the tree can
+ possibly grow. Suppose, for instance, the plasma of the rootlets has an
+ osmotic pressure of six atmospheres, corresponding to that of a 9 per
+ cent. solution of sugar. A pressure of six atmospheres is equal to the
+ weight of a column of water 6 × .76 × 13.596 = 61.95 metres high. This,
+ then, is the maximum height to which this osmotic pressure is able to
+ lift the sap. That is to say, a tree whose rootlets contain a solution of
+ sugar of 9 per cent. concentration, or its equivalent, can grow to a
+ height of 62 metres.</p>
+
+ <p>Cryoscopy is also of great use in practical medicine, more especially
+ for the examination of the urine. The freezing point of urine varies from
+ -1.26° C. to -2.35°. Koryani has studied the ratio of the point of
+ congelation of urine to that of a solution containing an equal quantity
+ of chloride of sodium. He finds that the ratio (freezing point of urine)
+ / (freezing point of NaCl) increases when the circulation through the
+ tubules of the kidney is diminished.</p>
+
+ <p>Hans Koeppe has shown that the hydrochloric acid of the gastric juice
+ is produced by the osmotic exchanges between the blood and the gastric
+ contents. The ion Na<sup>+</sup> of the salt in the stomach contents
+ exchanges with an ion H<sup>+</sup> of the monobasic salts of the blood,
+ NaHCO<sub>3</sub> + NaCl = HCl + Na<sub>2</sub>CO<sub>3</sub>. <!-- Page
+ 53 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page53"></a>{53}</span></p>
+
+ <p><i>Influence of Muscular Contraction on the Intramuscular Osmotic
+ Pressure.</i>&mdash;When a muscle is immersed in an isotonic salt
+ solution it does not change in weight. In a hypertonic solution it loses
+ weight in consequence of a loss of water, which passes from the muscle
+ into the solution to equalize the osmotic pressure. It gains weight in a
+ hypotonic solution, the water current setting towards the point of higher
+ concentration. It is easy, therefore, to tell whether the osmotic
+ pressure in a muscle is above or below that of a given solution, by
+ observing whether the muscle gains or loses weight when immersed in it.
+ Thus we may measure the osmotic pressure in a muscle by finding a salt
+ solution in which the muscle neither gains nor loses weight. In this way
+ we have been able to prove that the osmotic pressure of a tired muscle is
+ higher than that of the normal muscle. Our experiments were carried out
+ on the muscles of frogs. After having pithed the frog, one of the hind
+ legs is removed by a single stroke of the scissors. The leg is skinned,
+ dried with blotting paper, and weighed. It is then placed in a salt
+ solution whose freezing point is -.53° C. At 15° C. such a solution has
+ an osmotic pressure of 6.6 atmospheres. We next proceed to determine the
+ osmotic pressure of the corresponding leg after it has been tired by
+ muscular work. For this it is stimulated by an intermittent faradic
+ current passing once a second for five minutes. The leg is then skinned,
+ dried, weighed, and placed in the same salt solution. After eight hours'
+ immersion the legs are weighed again. The following are the results of
+ six experiments, the numbers representing fractions of the original
+ weight:&mdash;</p>
+
+ <p>Change of weight of untired leg&mdash;</p>
+
+<table class="nob" summary="Change of weight of untired leg." title="Change of weight of untired leg.">
+<tr><td class="spacsingle"> After 8 hours </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom;"> -.000.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="spacsingle"> After 16 hours </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom;"> -.000.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="spacsingle"> After 24 hours </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom;"> -.006.</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+ <p>Change of weight of stimulated leg&mdash;</p>
+
+<table class="nob" summary="Change of weight of stimulated leg." title="Change of weight of stimulated leg.">
+<tr><td class="spacsingle"> After 8 hours </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom;"> +.050.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="spacsingle"> After 16 hours </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom;"> +.080.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="spacsingle"> After 24 hours </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom;"> +.101.</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p><!-- Page 54 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page54"></a>{54}</span></p>
+
+ <p>This result shows that muscular work provoked by electric stimulation
+ noticeably increases the osmotic pressure of the muscle.</p>
+
+ <p>In order to discover the exact osmotic pressure in the stimulated
+ muscles we repeated the series of experiments, using more and more
+ concentrated solutions. In a solution whose freezing point was -.57°, we
+ obtained the following values:&mdash;</p>
+
+ <p>Change of weight of untired leg&mdash;</p>
+
+<table class="nob" summary="Change of weight of untired leg." title="Change of weight of untired leg.">
+<tr><td class="spacsingle"> After 8 hours </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom;"> -.000.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="spacsingle"> After 16 hours </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom;"> -.004.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="spacsingle"> After 24 hours </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom;"> -.006.</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+ <p>Change of weight of stimulated leg&mdash;</p>
+
+<table class="nob" summary="Change of weight of stimulated leg." title="Change of weight of stimulated leg.">
+<tr><td class="spacsingle"> After 8 hours </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom;"> +.039.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="spacsingle"> After 16 hours </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom;"> +.072.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="spacsingle"> After 24 hours </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom;"> +.099.</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+ <p>Finally, in a solution freezing at -.72°, <i>i.e.</i> with an osmotic
+ pressure at 15° C. of 9.176 atmospheres, we obtained the following mean
+ values for the untired leg:&mdash;</p>
+
+<table class="nob" summary="Change of weight of untired leg." title="Change of weight of untired leg.">
+<tr><td class="spacsingle"> After 8 hours </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom;"> -.04. &nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="spacsingle"> After 16 hours </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom;"> -.05. &nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="spacsingle"> After 24 hours </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom;"> -.06. &nbsp;</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+ <p>In this solution, freezing at -.72° C., some of the stimulated muscles
+ showed no diminution in weight, while others showed a very small
+ diminution, and others again a slight augmentation, the maximum increase
+ being .085 of the initial weight. The solution is therefore practically
+ isotonic with the stimulated muscle.</p>
+
+ <p>In this case the elevation of the intramuscular osmotic pressure
+ produced by the electrical excitation and the muscular contractions was
+ therefore 2.5 atmospheres, or more than 2.6 kilogrammes per square
+ centimetre of surface.</p>
+
+ <p>I made further experiments in order to discover whether the variation
+ in osmotic pressure depended on the duration of <!-- Page 55 --><span
+ class="pagenum"><a name="page55"></a>{55}</span>the muscular contraction.
+ For this purpose I used a solution freezing at -.53° C. and immersed in
+ it untired muscles, and muscles which had been electrically excited for
+ two, four, and six minutes respectively. The following are the
+ results:&mdash;</p>
+
+<table class="nob" summary="Effect of simulation time." title="Effect of simulation time.">
+<tr><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:center;"> Untired muscles. </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:center;" colspan="3"> Muscles stimulated once a second during</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:center;"> </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:center;"> 2 Minutes. </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:center;"> 4 Minutes. </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:center;"> 6 Minutes.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:center;"> &nbsp; .000 </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:center;"> +.026 </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:center;"> +.084 </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:center;"> +.094</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:center;"> +.001 </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:center;"> +.034 </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:center;"> +.065 </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:center;"> +.093</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:center;"> +.005 </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:center;"> +.045 </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:center;"> +.079 </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:center;"> +.097</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:center;"> &nbsp; .000 </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:center;"> +.037 </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:center;"> +.070 </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:center;"> +.095</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:center;"> &nbsp; .000 </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:center;"> +.032 </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:center;"> +.072 </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:center;"> +.096</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:left;" colspan="4"> Mean of all the observations&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:center;"> &nbsp; +.0012 </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:center;"> &nbsp; +.0348 </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:center;"> +.074 </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:center;"> +.095</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+ <p>These experiments show clearly that the osmotic intramuscular pressure
+ rises in proportion to the duration of the electrical stimulation.</p>
+
+ <p>In order to determine the influence of the work accomplished by the
+ muscle on the elevation of the osmotic pressure, I made the following
+ experiment. The two hind legs of a frog were submitted to the same
+ electrical excitation, one leg being left at liberty, and the other being
+ stretched by a hundred-gramme weight, acting by a cord and pulley. After
+ exciting them electrically for five minutes, the legs were immersed for
+ twenty-four hours in a saline solution freezing at .53° C. The free limb
+ showed an augmentation of .085 of the initial weight, and the stretched
+ limb an increase of .106 of the initial weight. It is evident, therefore,
+ that the osmotic pressure increases with the amount of work done by a
+ muscle.</p>
+
+ <p>Briefly, then, the results of our experiments are as
+ follow:&mdash;</p>
+
+ <p>1. Muscular contraction electrically produced causes an increase of
+ the osmotic pressure in a muscle.</p>
+
+ <p>2. The intramuscular osmotic pressure may reach, or even exceed, 2.5
+ atmospheres, or 2.6 kilogrammes per square centimetre of surface.</p>
+
+ <p>3. When a muscle is made to contract once a second, the <!-- Page 56
+ --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page56"></a>{56}</span>elevation of the
+ osmotic pressure increases with the number of contractions.</p>
+
+ <p>4. The intramuscular osmotic pressure increases with the work done by
+ the muscle.</p>
+
+ <p>5. Fatigue is caused by the increase of osmotic pressure in a
+ contracting muscle.</p>
+
+ <div class="figright" style="width:39%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig3.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig3.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 3." title="Fig. 3." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 3.</span>&mdash;Fields of diffusive force.
+
+ <p class="poem">(<i>a</i>) Monopolar field of diffusion. A drop of
+ blood in a saline solution of higher concentration.</p>
+
+ <p class="poem">(<i>b</i>) Bipolar field of diffusion. Two poles of
+ opposite signs. On the right a grain of salt forming a hypertonic pole
+ of concentration, on the left a drop of blood forming a hypotonic pole
+ of dilution. </p>
+ </div>
+
+ <p><i>The Field of Diffusion.</i>&mdash;Just as Faraday introduced the
+ conception of a field of magnetic force and a field of electric force to
+ explain magnetic and electrical phenomena, so we may elucidate the
+ phenomena of diffusion by the conception of a field of diffusion, with
+ centres or poles of diffusive force. If we consider a solution as a field
+ of diffusion, any point where the concentration is greater than that of
+ the rest may be considered as a centre of force, attractive for the
+ molecules of water, and repulsive for the molecules of the solute. In the
+ same way any point of less concentration may be regarded as a centre of
+ attraction for the molecules of the solute, and a centre of repulsion for
+ the molecules of water.</p>
+
+ <p>A field of diffusion may be monopolar or bipolar. A bipolar field has
+ a hypertonic pole or centre of concentration, and a hypotonic pole or
+ centre of dilution. By analogy with the magnetic and electric fields we
+ may designate the hypertonic pole as the positive pole of diffusion, and
+ the hypotonic as the negative pole. <!-- Page 57 --><span
+ class="pagenum"><a name="page57"></a>{57}</span></p>
+
+ <p>The positive and negative poles and the lines of force in the field of
+ diffusion may be illustrated by the following experiment. A thin layer of
+ salt water is spread over an absolutely horizontal plate of glass. If now
+ we take a drop of blood, or of Indian ink, and drop it carefully into the
+ middle of the salt solution, we shall find that the coloured particles
+ will travel along the lines of diffusive force, and thus map out for us a
+ monopolar field of diffusion, as in Fig. 3 <i>a</i>. Again, if we place
+ two similar drops side by side in a salt solution, their lines of
+ diffusion will repel one another, as in Fig. 4.</p>
+
+ <div class="figright" style="width:26%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig4.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig4.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 4." title="Fig. 4." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 4.</span>&mdash;Two drops of blood in a more
+ concentrated solution, showing a field of diffusion between two poles
+ of the same sign.
+ </div>
+
+ <p>Now let us put into the solution, side by side, one drop of less
+ concentration and another of greater concentration than the solution. The
+ lines of diffusion will pass from one drop to the other, diverging from
+ the centre of one drop and converging towards the centre of the other
+ (Fig. 3 <i>b</i>). In this manner we are able to obtain diffusion fields
+ analogous to the magnetic fields between poles of the same sign and poles
+ of opposite signs.</p>
+
+ <p>The conception of poles of diffusion is of the greatest importance in
+ biology, throwing a flood of light on a number of phenomena, such as
+ karyokinesis, which have hitherto been regarded as of a mysterious
+ nature. It also enables us to appreciate the rôle played by diffusion in
+ many other biological phenomena. Consider, for example, a centre of
+ anabolism in a living organism. Here the molecules of the living
+ protoplasm are in process of construction, simpler molecules being united
+ and built up to form larger and more complex groups. As a result of this
+ aggregation the number of molecules in a given area is diminished,
+ <i>i.e.</i> the concentration and the osmotic pressure fall, producing a
+ hypotonic centre of diffusion. We may thus regard every centre of
+ anabolism as a negative pole of diffusion. <!-- Page 58 --><span
+ class="pagenum"><a name="page58"></a>{58}</span></p>
+
+ <p>Consider, on the other hand, a centre of catabolism, where the
+ molecules are being broken up into fragments or smaller groups. The
+ concentration of the solution is increased, the osmotic pressure is
+ raised, and we have a hypertonic centre of diffusion. Every centre of
+ catabolism is therefore a positive pole of diffusion. Similar
+ considerations as to the formation and breaking up of the molecules in
+ anabolism and catabolism apply to polymerization.</p>
+
+ <p>The diffusion field has similar properties to the magnetic and the
+ electric field. Thus there is repulsion between poles of similar sign,
+ and attraction between poles of different signs. A simple experiment will
+ show this. A field of diffusion is made by pouring on a horizontal glass
+ plate a 10 per cent. solution of gelatine to which 5 per cent. of salt
+ has been added. The gelatine being set, we place side by side on its
+ surface two drops, one of water, and one of a salt solution of greater
+ concentration than 5 per cent. We have thus two poles of diffusion of
+ contrary signs, a hypotonic pole at the water drop, and a hypertonic pole
+ at the salt drop. Diffusion immediately begins to take place through the
+ gelatine, the drops become elongated, advance towards one another, touch,
+ and unite. If, on the contrary, the two neighbouring drops are both more
+ concentrated or both less concentrated than the medium, they exhibit
+ signs of repulsion as in Fig. 4.</p>
+
+ <p>Diffusion not only sets up currents in the water and in the solutes,
+ but it also determines movements in any particles that may be in
+ suspension, such as blood corpuscles, particles of Indian ink, and the
+ like. These particles are drawn along with the water stream which passes
+ from the hypotonic centres or regions toward those which are
+ hypertonic.</p>
+
+ <p>These considerations suggest a vast field of inquiry in biology,
+ pathology, and therapeutics. Inflammation, for example, is characterized
+ by tumefaction, turgescence of the tissues, and redness. The essence of
+ inflammation would appear to be destructive dis-assimilation with intense
+ catabolism. We have seen that a centre of catabolism is a hypertonic
+ focus of diffusion. Hence the osmotic pressure in an inflamed region is
+ increased, turgescence is produced, and <!-- Page 59 --><span
+ class="pagenum"><a name="page59"></a>{59}</span>the current of water
+ carries with it the blood globules which produce the redness.</p>
+
+ <p>The phenomenon of agglutination may also possibly be due to osmotic
+ pressure, a positive centre of diffusion attracting and agglomerating the
+ particles held in suspension.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Tactism and Tropism.</i>&mdash;The phenomena of tactism and tropism
+ may also be partly explained by the action of these diffusion currents of
+ particles in suspension, these polar attractions and repulsions. In all
+ experiments on this subject we should take into account the possible
+ influence of osmotic pressure, since many of the causes of tactism or
+ tropism also modify the osmotic pressure at the point of action, and it
+ is possible that this modification is the true cause of the phenomenon.
+ Osmotactism and osmotropism have not as yet been sufficiently
+ studied.</p>
+
+ <div class="figright" style="width:28%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig5.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig5.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 5." title="Fig. 5." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 5.</span>&mdash;Liquid figures of diffusion.
+
+ <p class="poem">The six negative poles of diffusion are coloured with
+ Indian ink. The positive pole in the centre is uncoloured and is formed
+ by a drop of KNO<sub>3</sub> solution.</p>
+ </div>
+
+ <p>Thus it may be said that osmotic pressure dominates all the kinetic
+ and dynamic phenomena of life, all those at least which are not purely
+ mechanical, like the movements of respiration and circulation. The study
+ of these vital phenomena is greatly facilitated by the conception of the
+ field of diffusion and poles of diffusion, and of the lines of force,
+ which are the trajectories of the molecules of the solutes, and the
+ particles and globules in suspension.</p>
+
+ <p><i>The Morphogenic Effects of Diffusion.</i>&mdash;Many interesting
+ experiments may be made showing variations of the lines of force in a
+ field of diffusion, and how liquids subjected only to differences of
+ osmotic pressure diffuse and mix with one <!-- Page 60 --><span
+ class="pagenum"><a name="page60"></a>{60}</span>another in definite
+ patterns. When a liquid diffuses in another undisturbed by the influence
+ of gravity, it produces figures of geometric regularity, and we may thus
+ obtain figures and forms of infinite variety. The following is our method
+ of procedure. A glass plate is placed absolutely horizontal and is
+ covered with a thin layer of water or of saline solution. Then with a
+ pipette we introduce into the solution, in a regular pattern, a number of
+ drops of liquid coloured with Indian ink. A wonderful variety of patterns
+ and figures may be obtained by employing solutions of different
+ concentration and varying the position of the drops.</p>
+
+ <div class="figleft" style="width:29%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig6.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig6.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 6." title="Fig. 6." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 6.</span>&mdash;Pattern produced in gelatine by
+ the diffusion of drops of concentrated solutions of nitrate of silver
+ and bromide of ammonium.
+ </div>
+
+ <p>Instead of the water or salt solution, we may spread on the plate a 5
+ or 10 per cent. solution of gelatine, containing various salts in
+ solution. If now we sow on this gelatine drops of various solutions which
+ give colorations with the salts in the gelatine, we may obtain forms of
+ perfect regularity, presenting most beautiful colours and contrasts. The
+ drops, of course, must be placed in a symmetrical pattern. In this way we
+ may obtain an endless number of ornamental figures.</p>
+
+ <p>In order to cover a lantern slide 8½ cm. × 10 cm., about 5 c.c. of
+ gelatine is required. To this amount of gelatine we add a single drop of
+ a saturated solution of salicylate of sodium, and spread the liquid
+ gelatine evenly over the plate. When the gelatine has set, we put the
+ plate over a diagram, a hexagon for instance, and place a drop of ferrous
+ sulphate solution at each of the six angles. The drops immediately
+ diffuse <!-- Page 61 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page61"></a>{61}</span>through the gelatine, and the result after a
+ time is the production of a beautiful purple rosette. The gelatine must
+ be carefully covered to prevent its drying until the diffusion is
+ complete. The preparation may then be dried and mounted as a lantern
+ slide, and will give the most brilliant effect on projection. If the
+ gelatine has been treated with a drop of potassium ferrocyanide solution
+ instead of salicylate of sodium, a few drops of FeSO<sub>4</sub> will
+ give a blue pattern. Or we may treat the gelatine with ferrocyanide of
+ potassium and salicylate of sodium mixed, and thus obtain an intermediary
+ colour on the addition of FeSO<sub>4</sub>. We may, indeed, vary
+ indefinitely the nature and concentration of the solution, as well as the
+ number and position of the drops. The results have all the charm of the
+ unexpected, which adds greatly to the interest of the experiment.</p>
+
+ <div class="figright" style="width:32%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig7.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig7.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 7." title="Fig. 7." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 7.</span>&mdash;Pattern produced in gelatine by
+ the diffusion of drops of silver nitrate and sodium carbonate.
+ </div>
+
+ <p>These experiments are not merely a scientific toy. They show us the
+ possibility, hitherto unsuspected, that a vast number of the forms and
+ colours of nature may be the result of diffusion. Thus many of the
+ phenomena of life, hitherto so mysterious, present themselves to us as
+ merely the consequences of the diffusion of one liquid into another. One
+ cannot help hoping that the study of diffusion will throw still further
+ light on the subject.</p>
+
+ <p>If a number of spheres, each capable of expansion and deformation, are
+ produced simultaneously in a liquid, they will form polyhedra when they
+ expand by growth. This is the <!-- Page 62 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page62"></a>{62}</span>precise architecture of a vast number of
+ living organisms and tissues, which are formed by the union of
+ microscopic polyhedra or cells. A section of such a polyhedral structure
+ would appear as a tissue of polygons. It is interesting to note that the
+ simple process of diffusion will produce such structures under conditions
+ closely allied to those which govern the development of the tissues of a
+ living organism.</p>
+
+ <div class="figleft" style="width:37%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig8.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig8.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 8." title="Fig. 8." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 8.</span>&mdash;Pattern produced in gelatine by
+ the diffusion of drops of a solution of nitrate of silver and of
+ citrate of potassium.
+ </div>
+
+ <p>We may obtain this cellular structure by a simple experiment. On a
+ glass plate we spread a 5 per cent. solution of pure gelatine, and when
+ set sow on it a number of drops of a 5 to 10 per cent. solution of
+ ferrocyanide of potassium. The drops must be placed at regular intervals
+ of 5 mm. all over the plate. When these have been allowed to diffuse and
+ the gelatine has dried, we obtain a preparation which exactly resembles
+ the section of a vegetable cellular tissue (Fig. 9). The drops have by
+ mutual pressure formed polygons, which appear in section as cells, with a
+ membranous envelope, a <!-- Page 63 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page63"></a>{63}</span>nucleus, and a cytoplasm, which is in many
+ cases entirely separated from the membrane. These cells when united form
+ a veritable tissue, in all respects similar to the cellular structure of
+ a living organism.</p>
+
+ <div class="figright" style="width:35%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig9.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig9.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 9." title="Fig. 9." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 9.</span>&mdash;Tissue of artificial cells formed
+ by the diffusion in gelatine of drops of potassium ferrocyanide.
+ </div>
+
+ <p>In the preparation showing artificial cells the cellular structure is
+ not directly visible until the gelatine has dried. One sees only a
+ gelatinous mass analogous to the protoplasm of a living organism. This
+ mass is nevertheless organized, or at least in process of organization,
+ as we may see by the refraction when its image is projected on the
+ screen.</p>
+
+ <p>During the cell-formation, and as long as there is any difference of
+ concentration in the gelatine, each cell is the arena of active molecular
+ movement. There is a double current, as in the living cell, a stream of
+ water from the periphery to the centre, and of the solute from the centre
+ to the periphery. This molecular activity&mdash;the life of the
+ artificial cell&mdash;may be prolonged by appropriate nourishment, <!--
+ Page 64 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page64"></a>{64}</span><i>i.e.</i> by continually repairing the
+ loss of concentration at the centre of the cell.</p>
+
+ <p>The life of the artificial cell may also be prolonged by maintaining
+ around it an appropriate medium. If we prematurely dry such a preparation
+ of artificial cells, the molecular currents will cease, to recur again
+ when we restore the necessary humidity to the preparation. This to my
+ mind gives us a most vivid picture of the conditions of latent life in
+ seeds and many rotifera.</p>
+
+ <p>These artificial cells, like living organisms, have an evolutionary
+ existence. The first stage corresponds to the process of organization,
+ the gelatine representing the blastema, and the drop the nucleus. Thus
+ the cell becomes organized, forming its own cytoplasm and its own
+ enveloping membrane.</p>
+
+ <p>The second stage in the life of this artificial cell is the period
+ during which the metabolism of the cell is active and tends to equalize
+ the concentration of the liquid in the cell and in the surrounding
+ medium.</p>
+
+ <p>The third stage is the period of decline. The double molecular current
+ gradually slows down as the difference of concentration decreases between
+ the cell contents and its entourage. When this equality of concentration
+ has become complete the molecular currents cease, the cell has terminated
+ its existence; it is dead. The currents of substance and of energy have
+ ceased to flow&mdash;the form only remains.</p>
+
+ <p>These artificial cells are sensible to most of the influences which
+ affect living organisms. Like living cells they are influenced both in
+ their organization and in their development by humidity, dryness,
+ acidity, or alkalinity. They are also greatly affected by the addition of
+ minute quantities of chemical substances either to the gelatinous
+ blastema or to the drops which represent the primary nuclei. We may in
+ this way obtain endless varieties, nuclei which are opaque or
+ transparent, with or without a nucleolus, and cells containing
+ homogeneous cytoplasm without a nucleus. We may also obtain cells with
+ cytoplasm filling the whole of the cellular cavity or separated from the
+ cell-membrane. We may obtain <!-- Page 65 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page65"></a>{65}</span>cells imitating all the natural tissues,
+ cells without a membranous envelope, cells with thick walls adhering to
+ one another, or cells with wide intracellular spaces.</p>
+
+ <div class="figright" style="width:28%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig10.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig10.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 10." title="Fig. 10." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 10.</span>&mdash;Artificial liquid cells, formed
+ by coloured drops of concentrated salt solution in a less concentrated
+ salt solution.
+ </div>
+
+ <p>The forms of these artificial cells depend on the number and relative
+ position of the drops which represent the nuclei, and on the molecular
+ concentration or osmotic tension of the solution. The number of the
+ cellular polyhedra is determined by the number of centres of diffusion.
+ The magnitude of the dihedral angles, from which radiate three and
+ occasionally four walls, depends on the position of the hypertonic poles
+ of diffusion. The curvature of a surface is determined by the differences
+ of concentration on either side. Between isotonic solutions the surface
+ is plane, whilst it is curved between solutions of different osmotic
+ pressures, the convexity being directed towards the hypertonic
+ solution.</p>
+
+ <div class="figleft" style="width:21%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig11.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig11.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 11." title="Fig. 11." /></a>
+ <p class="poem"><span class="sc">Fig. 11.</span>&mdash;Liquid cells
+ with a fringe of cilia, obtained by sowing coloured drops of
+ concentrated salt solution in a weaker salt solution. The contents of
+ the cells have undergone segmentation.</p>
+ </div>
+
+ <p>The time required for these artificial cells to grow varies from two
+ to twenty-four hours, according to the concentration of the gelatine, the
+ growth being most rapid in dilute solutions.</p>
+
+ <p>Similar cells may be produced in water. If we pour a thin layer of
+ water on a horizontal plate, and with a pipette <!-- Page 66 --><span
+ class="pagenum"><a name="page66"></a>{66}</span>sow in it a number of
+ drops of salt water coloured with Indian ink, we may obtain artificial
+ cells composed entirely of liquid, having the same characters as those
+ produced in a gelatinous solution.</p>
+
+ <p>It is possible by liquid diffusion to produce not only ordinary cells
+ but ciliated cells. If we spread a layer of salt water on a horizontal
+ glass plate, and sow in it drops of Indian ink, artificial cells are
+ produced by diffusion. At the edge of the preparation there is often to
+ be seen a sort of fringe, analogous to the cilia of living cells (Fig.
+ 11).</p>
+
+ <p>These tissues of artificial cells demonstrate the fact that inorganic
+ matter is able to organize itself into forms and structures analogous to
+ those of living organisms under the action of the simple physical forces
+ of osmotic pressure and diffusion. The structures thus produced have
+ functions which are also analogous to those of living beings, a double
+ current of diffusion, an evolutionary existence, and a latent vitality
+ when desiccated or congealed.</p>
+
+ <p><br style="clear:both" /></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p><!-- Page 67 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page67"></a>{67}</span></p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER VI</h3>
+
+<p class="cenhead">PERIODICITY</p>
+
+ <p><i>Periodic Precipitation.</i>&mdash;A phenomenon is said to be
+ periodic when it varies in time and space and is identically reproduced
+ at equal intervals. We are surrounded on all sides by periodic phenomena;
+ summer and winter, day and night, sleep and waking, rhythm and rhyme,
+ flux and reflux, the movements of respiration and the beating of the
+ heart, all are periodic. Our first sorrows were appeased by the periodic
+ rhythm of the cradle, and in our later years the periodic swing of the
+ rocking-chair and the hammock still soothe the infirmities of old
+ age.</p>
+
+ <p>Sound is a periodic movement of the atmosphere which brings to us
+ harmony and melody. Light consists of periodic undulations of the ether
+ which convey to us the beauty of form and colour. Periodic ethereal waves
+ waft to us the wireless message through terrestrial space and the radiant
+ energy of the sun and stars.</p>
+
+ <p>It is therefore not to be wondered at that the phenomena of diffusion
+ are also periodic. According to Professor Quinke of Heidelberg, the first
+ mention of the periodic formation of chemical precipitates must be
+ attributed to Runge in 1885. Since that time these precipitates have been
+ studied by a number of authors, and particularly by R. Liesegang of
+ Düsseldorf, who in 1907 published a work on the subject, entitled <i>On
+ Stratification by Diffusion</i>.</p>
+
+ <p>In 1901 I presented to the Congress of Ajaccio a number of
+ preparations showing concentric rings, alternately transparent and
+ opaque, obtained by diffusing a drop of potassium ferrocyanide solution
+ in gelatine containing a trace of ferric <!-- Page 68 --><span
+ class="pagenum"><a name="page68"></a>{68}</span>sulphate. At the Congress
+ of Rheims in 1907 I exhibited the result of some further experiments on
+ the same subject.</p>
+
+ <p>These periodic precipitates may be obtained from a great number of
+ different chemical substances. The following is the best method of
+ demonstrating the phenomenon. A glass lantern slide is carefully cleaned
+ and placed absolutely level. We then take 5 c.c. of a 10 per cent.
+ solution of gelatine and add to it one drop of a concentrated solution of
+ sodium arsenate. This is poured over the glass plate whilst hot, and as
+ soon as it is quite set, but before it can dry, we allow a drop of silver
+ nitrate solution containing a trace of nitric acid to fall on it from a
+ pipette. The drop slowly spreads in the gelatine, and we thus obtain
+ magnificent rings of periodic precipitates of arsenate of silver, with
+ which any one may easily repeat the experiments detailed in this
+ chapter.</p>
+
+ <div class="figright" style="width:29%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig12.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig12.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 12." title="Fig. 12." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 12.</span>&mdash;Lines of diffusion precipitate,
+ showing the simultaneous propagation of "undulations of different
+ wave-length.
+ </div>
+
+ <p><i>Circular Waves of Precipitation.</i>&mdash;The wave-front of the
+ periodic rings of precipitates is always perpendicular to the rays of
+ diffusion. The distance between the rings depends on the concentration of
+ the diffusing solution. The greater the fall of concentration, the less
+ is the interval between the rings. Each ring represents an equipotential
+ line in the field of diffusion. These equipotential lines of diffusion
+ give us the best and most concrete reproduction of the mode of
+ propagation of periodic waves in space. They are, in fact, a visible
+ diagram of the propagation of the waves of light and sound. Occasionally
+ we may observe in the gelatine the simultaneous propagation of
+ undulations of different wave-length, just as we have them in the ether
+ and the air. These diffusion wavelets <!-- Page 69 --><span
+ class="pagenum"><a name="page69"></a>{69}</span>give us a very beautiful
+ representation of the simultaneous propagation of undulations of
+ different wave-length in the same medium.</p>
+
+ <div class="figleft" style="width:27%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig13.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig13.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 13." title="Fig. 13." /></a>
+ <p class="poem"><span class="sc">Fig. 13.</span>&mdash;Waves of
+ diffusion refracted at a plane surface on passing from a less
+ concentrated into a more concentrated solution. The refracted
+ wave-front is flattened, the wave-length being less in the denser
+ medium.</p>
+ </div>
+
+ <p>Like waves of light and sound, these waves of diffusion are refracted
+ when they pass from one medium into another of a different density, where
+ they have a different velocity. When, for instance, a diffusion wave
+ passes from a 5 per cent. solution of gelatine into a 10 per cent.
+ solution, the wave-front is retarded, the retardation being proportional
+ to the length of the path through the denser medium. Hence the wave-front
+ is flattened, the curvature of the refracted wave being less than that of
+ the original wave of diffusion. The contrary is the case when the
+ wave-front passes into a medium where its velocity is greater. The middle
+ of the wave-front now travels faster than the flanks, and the curvature
+ is increased.</p>
+
+ <div class="figright" style="width:25%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig14.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig14.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 14." title="Fig. 14." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 14.</span>&mdash;Transformation of a spherical
+ wave-front into a plane wave-front by a convergent diopter.
+ </div>
+
+ <p>These diffusion rings furnish us with most excellent diagrams of
+ refraction at a "diopter," <i>i.e.</i> a spherical surface separating two
+ media of different densities. Fig. 14 shows the refraction at a
+ convergent diopter, <i>i.e</i>. a surface where the denser medium is
+ convex. The diffusion waves in this case emanate from the principal focus
+ of the diopter, and therefore become plane on passing through the convex
+ surface of the denser gelatine.</p>
+
+ <p>These periodic diffusion rings also illustrate the phenomena of colour
+ diffraction. Diffusion waves of different <!-- Page 70 --><span
+ class="pagenum"><a name="page70"></a>{70}</span>wavelength are unequally
+ refracted by a gelatine lens. Hence rings of different wave-length which,
+ originating at the same spot, are at first concentric, are no longer
+ parallel after passing through a gelatine lens. A convergent lens which
+ will change the long spherical incident waves into shorter plane waves,
+ will transform the short incident waves into concave waves whose
+ curvature is opposite to that of the original waves, <i>i.e.</i> it will
+ transform a divergent into a convergent beam. This is an illustration of
+ what is called the aberration of refrangibility.</p>
+
+ <p>In the same way we may demonstrate the course of diffusion waves
+ through a gelatine prism, showing the refraction on their incidence and
+ again on emergence. The prism is made of a stronger gelatine solution,
+ which is more refractive than the gelatine around it. The waves of
+ diffusion whilst traversing the prism are retarded, and this retardation
+ is greatest at the base where the passage is longer. Hence the wave-front
+ is tilted towards the base of the prism, and this tilting is repeated
+ when the wave-front leaves the prism.</p>
+
+ <p>If we examine diffusion waves of different wave-length on their
+ emergence from the gelatine prism, we shall see that they cut one
+ another. With a dense prism, the wave-front of the shorter waves is more
+ tilted towards the base than the wave-front of the longer waves. For
+ diffusion as for light the shorter waves are the most refracted. Both
+ refraction and dispersion are due to the unequal resistances of the
+ medium to undulatory movements of different periodicity.</p>
+
+ <div class="figright" style="width:28%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig15.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig15.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 15." title="Fig. 15." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 15.</span>&mdash;Diffraction of diffusion waves
+ on passing through a narrow aperture.
+ </div>
+
+ <p><i>Diffraction.</i>&mdash;When light traverses a minute orifice,
+ instead <!-- Page 71 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page71"></a>{71}</span>of passing on in a straight line, it spreads
+ out like a fan, forming a diverging cone of light, just as if the orifice
+ were itself a luminous point. This is the phenomenon of diffraction which
+ has hitherto been considered incompatible with the emission theory of
+ light. Diffusion waves may also be made to pass through a narrow orifice,
+ when they will behave exactly like the waves of light. The new waves
+ radiate from the orifice like a fan, instead of giving a cone of waves
+ bounded by lines passing through the circumference of the orifice and the
+ original centre of radiation. Thus on passing through a small orifice
+ diffusion waves exhibit the phenomenon of diffraction just as light waves
+ do.</p>
+
+ <div class="figleft" style="width:23%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig16.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig16.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 16." title="Fig. 16." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 16.</span>&mdash;Interference of diffusion waves.
+ </div>
+
+ <p><i>Interference.</i>&mdash;The phenomenon of interference may also be
+ illustrated by waves of diffusion. If on a gelatine plate we produce two
+ series of diffusion waves from two separate centres, we get at certain
+ points an appearance corresponding to the interference of two sets of
+ light waves. This appearance is best shown by sowing on the gelatine film
+ a straight row of drops equidistant from one another. It should be
+ remarked that this phenomenon of the production of circles of precipitate
+ separated by transparent spaces, although periodic, is not of necessity
+ vibratory or undulatory. It would thus appear that periodic phenomena may
+ be propagated through space without vibratory or oscillatory motion. If
+ we submit to a critical examination the various experiments which have
+ established the undulatory theory of light, we find that they do indeed
+ demonstrate the periodic nature of light, but in no wise prove that light
+ is a vibratory movement of the ether. <!-- Page 72 --><span
+ class="pagenum"><a name="page72"></a>{72}</span>On the contrary, the
+ hypothesis that light is propagated by vibratory movements is open to
+ many objections. Even the Zeeman effect, although it may tend to
+ establish the fact that light is produced by vibratory movement, by no
+ means proves that it is propagated in the same manner. When the theory
+ was accepted that the transmission of light was periodic it was supposed
+ that this periodic transmission could only be vibratory or undulatory in
+ character, since waves or vibrations were the only periodic phenomena
+ known at that time. We now know that there are other means of periodic
+ transmission which are apparently not undulatory. The periodic
+ precipitates produced by diffusion show us the transmission of spherical
+ waves through space, which follow the laws of light, although the
+ periodic phenomenon is apparently emissive rather than vibratory.</p>
+
+ <p>It will be remembered that Newton considered light to be produced by
+ projectile-like particles emanating from a centre, and proceeding in
+ straight lines in all directions. This emission theory of light was
+ abandoned in favour of Huygens' undulatory theory.</p>
+
+ <p>It was said that the phenomena of interference and diffraction could
+ not be explained by the theory of emission, while the undulatory theory
+ gave a simple explanation. The scientific mind was unable to conceive the
+ idea of emission and periodicity as taking part in the same phenomenon.
+ The savants and thinkers who have meditated on this question have always
+ considered the theory of emission and that of periodicity as
+ incompatible. Nevertheless, we are here in presence of a phenomenon in
+ which emission and periodicity exist simultaneously. The molecules
+ emanating from our drop are diffused in straight radiating lines, and yet
+ produce periodic precipitates which are subject to interference and
+ diffraction like the undulations of Huygens.</p>
+
+ <p>The phenomena associated with the pressure of light, the <!-- Page 73
+ --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page73"></a>{73}</span>discovery of the
+ cathode rays and the radiations of radium, together with the introduction
+ of the electron theory of electricity, all seem to have brought again
+ into greater prominence Newton's original conception of the emissionary
+ nature of light.</p>
+
+ <p>Some of the phenomena of radiation can be explained only by the
+ emission theory, and others by the undulatory theory of light. All these
+ difficulties would be solved if we admitted the hypothesis that radiating
+ bodies project electrons, which produce in the ether periodic waves
+ similar to those formed in our gelatine films by the molecules of
+ diffusion.</p>
+
+ <p>These diffusion films are of the greatest possible service in the
+ practical teaching of optics. They place before the eye of the student a
+ working model as it were of the undulations of light. When projected on
+ the screen, they give excellent pictures of the phenomena of refraction,
+ diffraction, and interference, and the simultaneous propagation of
+ undulation of different wave-lengths, and they show in a visible manner
+ the changes of wave-length in media of different densities.</p>
+
+ <p>Diffusion waves differ greatly in length, varying from several
+ millimetres to 2 <span class="grk">&mu;</span>. Many are even shorter
+ than this, too short to be separately distinguished even under the
+ highest power of the microscope, when they give the effect of moiré or
+ mother-of-pearl.</p>
+
+ <p>It is easy to construct a spectroscopic grating in this way with fine
+ lines whose distance apart is of the order of a micron, separated by
+ clear spaces. Every physical laboratory may thus produce its own
+ spectroscopic gratings, rectilinear, circular, or of any desired
+ form.</p>
+
+ <p>The most beautiful colour effects may be produced with these diffusion
+ gratings, as we have shown at the Congress of Rheims in 1907. We have a
+ considerable collection of these diffusion gratings, some with very fine
+ lines, giving a very extended spectrum, and others with coarser
+ striations which give a large number of small spectra.</p>
+
+ <p>This study of periodic precipitates is of the highest interest when we
+ come to investigate the production of colour in natural objects, such as
+ the wings of insects or the plumage of <!-- Page 74 --><span
+ class="pagenum"><a name="page74"></a>{74}</span>birds. Many tissues have
+ this lined or striated structure and exhibit interference colours like
+ those of the periodic precipitates, their structure showing alternate
+ transparent and opaque lines, whose width is of the order of a micron.
+ This is the structure of muscle, and to this striated surface is also
+ attributable many of the most beautiful colours of nature, the gleam of
+ tendon and aponeurosis, the fire of scarab and beetle, the colours of the
+ peacock, and the iridescence of the mollusc and the pearl. The study of
+ liquid diffusion has given us an idea of the physical mechanism by which
+ these striated tissues are produced, a mechanism which up to the present
+ time has not been even suspected. Our experiments show how readily such
+ striped or ruled structures may be produced in a colloidal solution by
+ the simple diffusion of salts such as are found in every living
+ organism.</p>
+
+ <div class="figright" style="width:35%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig17.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig17.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 17." title="Fig. 17." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 17.</span>&mdash;Photomicrograph of striated
+ structure of a periodic precipitate of carbonate and phosphate of lime
+ (magnified 500 times).
+ </div>
+
+ <p>To make a spectroscopic grating by diffusion we proceed as follows. We
+ take 5 c.c. of a 10 per cent. solution of gelatine, and add to it one
+ drop of a concentrated solution <!-- Page 75 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page75"></a>{75}</span>of calcium nitrate. We spread the gelatine
+ evenly over a plain glass lantern slide and allow it to set. After it is
+ set, but before it dries, we place in the centre of the slide a drop of
+ concentrated solution containing two parts of sodium carbonate
+ (Na<sub>2</sub>CO<sub>3</sub>) to one of dibasic sodium phosphate
+ (Na<sub>2</sub>HPO<sub>4</sub>). Tribasic sodium phosphate alone without
+ the addition of the carbonate will also give good results. If the
+ phosphate solution is placed on the gelatine in the form of a drop, we
+ obtain circular periodic precipitates. If it is desired to make a
+ rectilineal grating, we deposit the phosphate solution on the gelatine in
+ a straight line by means of two parallel glass plates. In this way we may
+ obtain lines of periodic precipitation to the number of 500 to 1000 per
+ millimetre, forming gratings which produce most beautiful spectra.</p>
+
+ <p>Pearls and mother-of-pearl both owe their iridescence to a similar
+ ruled structure, which is developed in the living tissue of a mollusc.
+ They are, in fact, periodic precipitates of phosphate and carbonate of
+ lime deposited in the colloidal organic substance of the mollusc. They
+ have the same structure and the same chemical composition; they have the
+ same physical properties, the glow, the fire, and the brilliancy of our
+ spectroscopic gratings. In these experiments, indeed, we have realized
+ the synthesis of the pearl, not only a chemical synthesis, but the
+ synthesis of its structure and organism.</p>
+
+ <p>We have been able to make these periodic precipitates by the reaction
+ of a great number of chemical substances, giving a bewildering variety of
+ form and structure. Some of these recall the form of various organisms,
+ and especially of insects, as may be seen in Fig. 18.</p>
+
+ <p>All the phenomena of life are periodic. The movement of heart and
+ lungs, sleep and waking, all nervous phenomena, have a regular
+ periodicity. It is possible that the study of these purely physical
+ phenomena of periodic precipitation may give us the key to the causation
+ of rhythm and periodicity in living beings.</p>
+
+ <p>Besides this periodic precipitation there appear to be other chemical
+ reactions which are periodic. Professor Bredig of Heidelberg has lately
+ described a curious phenomenon, the <!-- Page 76 --><span
+ class="pagenum"><a name="page76"></a>{76}</span>periodic catalysis of
+ peroxide of hydrogen by mercury. He thus describes his experiment: "We
+ place in a perfectly clean test tube a few cubic centimetres of perfectly
+ pure mercury. Upon this we pour 10 c.c. of a 10 per cent. solution of
+ hydrogen peroxide. The mercury speedily becomes covered with a thin,
+ brilliant bronze-coloured pellicle which reflects light. Then little by
+ little catalysis of the hydrogen peroxide begins, with liberation of
+ oxygen. After some time, from five to twenty minutes, the liberation of
+ gas at the surface of the mercury ceases, the cloud formed by the gas
+ bubbles disappears, and the bronze mirror at the surface of the mercury
+ lights up with the glint of silver. There is a pause of one or more
+ seconds, and then the catalytic action begins afresh, commencing at the
+ edges of the mirror. The cloud is again formed and again disappears. This
+ beautiful and surprising rhythmic phenomenon may continue at regular
+ intervals for an hour or more."</p>
+
+ <div class="figright" style="width:37%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig18.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig18.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 18." title="Fig. 18." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 18.</span>&mdash;Articulate form produced by
+ periodic precipitation.
+ </div>
+
+ <p>A slight alkalinity of the liquid is necessary to start the
+ phenomenon. This explains the retardation at the beginning <!-- Page 77
+ --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page77"></a>{77}</span>of the
+ experiment, since the rhythmic catalysis cannot begin until the hydrogen
+ peroxide has dissolved a little of the glass so as to render it slightly
+ alkaline. The catalytic process may, however, be set going at once by
+ adding a trace of potassium acetate to the solution.</p>
+
+ <p>We may even obtain a curve giving an automatic record of the
+ periodicity of this catalytic action. For this purpose the oxygen given
+ off is led to a manometer, which registers on a revolving drum the
+ periodic variation in pressure. The curve thus obtained presents a
+ remarkable resemblance to a tracing of the pulse. The frequency and
+ character of the undulatory curve is modified by physical and chemical
+ influences. Like circulation or respiration, periodic catalysis has its
+ poisons, and exhibits signs of fatigue, and of paralysis by cold.</p>
+
+ <p>The rhythmic catalysis of Bredig produces an electrical current of
+ action between the mercury and the water just like that produced by the
+ rhythmic contraction of the heart, and this current may be registered in
+ a similar way by means of the Einthoven galvanometer. Thus the heart-beat
+ may be but an instance of rhythmic catalysis, since both produce the same
+ phenomena, movement, chemical action, and periodic currents. In the
+ chapter on physiogenesis we shall return to the study of this question
+ and consider another rhythmic phenomenon which is the result of osmotic
+ growth.</p>
+
+ <p><br style="clear:both" /></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p><!-- Page 78 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page78"></a>{78}</span></p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER VII</h3>
+
+<p class="cenhead">COHESION AND CRYSTALLIZATION</p>
+
+ <p>Chemical affinity is the force which holds together the different
+ atoms in a molecule. Cohesion is the force which holds together molecules
+ which are chemically similar. Although physical science distinguishes
+ three states of matter, solid, liquid, and gaseous, yet here as elsewhere
+ there are no sharp dividing lines, but rather an absolute continuity. We
+ have in fact many intermediate states; between liquids and gases there
+ are the various conditions of vapour, and between liquids and solids we
+ get viscous, gelatinous, and paste-like conditions. The only real
+ difference between solids, liquids, and gases is the intensity of the
+ force of cohesion, which is considerable in solids, feeble in liquids,
+ and absent in gases.</p>
+
+ <p>A living organism is the arena in which are brought into play the
+ opposing forces of cohesion and disintegration. The study of cohesion is
+ therefore a vital one for the biologist, and especially cohesion under
+ the conditions which obtain in living beings, viz. in liquids of
+ heterogeneous constitution. The forces of cohesion brought into play
+ under these conditions may be beautifully illustrated by a simple
+ experiment. We take a plate of glass, well cleaned and absolutely
+ horizontal. On it we pour a layer of salt water, and in the middle we
+ carefully drop a spot of Indian ink. The drop at once begins to diffuse,
+ and we obtain a circular figure, like the monopolar field of diffusion
+ already described, the rays of diffusion radiating from the centre in all
+ directions.</p>
+
+ <div class="figright" style="width:19%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig19.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig19.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 19." title="Fig. 19." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 19.</span>&mdash;Muriform cohesion figure formed
+ by a drop of Indian ink in a solution of salt.
+ </div>
+
+ <p>If we keep the plate carefully protected from all disturbing
+ influences, after some ten to twenty minutes we shall see the coloured
+ particles returning on their path, and the centre of <!-- Page 79
+ --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page79"></a>{79}</span>the drop
+ becoming more and more black. Each line of force becomes segmented into
+ granules, which gradually increase in size, and approach nearer to one
+ another and to the centre of the drop, until it assumes the mulberry
+ appearance shown in the photograph (Fig. 19).</p>
+
+ <div class="figleft" style="width:34%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig20.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig20.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 20." title="Fig. 20." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 20.</span>&mdash;Seven similar drops of Indian
+ ink diffusing in a salt solution. Two minutes after introducing the
+ drops.
+ </div>
+
+ <p>If we sow a number of drops of Indian ink in regular order on the
+ surface of a salt solution, we obtain most beautiful patterns formed by
+ the mutual repulsion of the drops. Figs. 20, 21, and 22 represent the
+ successive aspects of seven drops of Indian ink thus sown on a layer of
+ salt solution, and kept undisturbed long enough to allow of their
+ evolution. Fig. 20 shows the aspect after two minutes, when the diffusion
+ is almost complete. In Fig. 21, photographed after fifteen <!-- Page 80
+ --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page80"></a>{80}</span>minutes, the
+ colouring matter has almost entirely reunited to form separate
+ granulations; whilst in Fig. 22, taken after thirty minutes, these
+ granulations are rearranged to form an agglomeration around the centre of
+ each drop.</p>
+
+ <div class="figright" style="width:33%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig21.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig21.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 21." title="Fig. 21." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 21.</span>&mdash;The same drops 15 minutes later,
+ showing the granulation appearance.
+ </div>
+
+ <p>The following experiment, which is more difficult, will show the
+ cohesive attraction of one drop for another. A plate of glass is adjusted
+ absolutely horizontal, and covered as before with a layer of salt
+ solution. On this we sow a number of drops of the same salt solution
+ coloured with Indian ink. The drops must be of exactly the same
+ concentration as the salt medium, so as to avoid any difference of
+ osmotic pressure between the drops and the medium, otherwise the drops
+ would not remain intact but would diffuse into the solution. Since under
+ these conditions the liquid of the medium around the drops is perfectly
+ symmetrical and homogeneous, it cannot exercise any influence on the
+ liquid of the drops.</p>
+
+ <div class="figleft" style="width:31%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig22.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig22.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 22." title="Fig. 22." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 22.</span>&mdash;The same drops after 30 minutes.
+ The granulations have agglomerated at the centre of the drops.
+ </div>
+
+ <p>It is otherwise, however, with the colouring matter of the <!-- Page
+ 81 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page81"></a>{81}</span>drops. The
+ particles of Indian ink may be seen passing from one drop to another, the
+ coloured circles become elongated towards one another, touch, and finally
+ unite. If, as in Fig. 23, the drops are of different size, the larger one
+ will have a preponderating attractive action and eat up the smaller
+ drops. In the figure, six small drops are placed around a large one, and
+ the smaller drops have begun to be deformed and to move towards the
+ larger drop. This central drop is also deformed, and has assumed a more
+ or less hexagonal form, under the influence of the attraction of the six
+ smaller ones. It may be noticed that the least prominent angle of the
+ hexagon is opposite the small drop which is farthest away from it, whilst
+ one of the smaller drops has already begun to be swallowed up by the
+ large one. This cohesion phenomenon is very slow in its action, but after
+ an hour or two the central drop will be found to have <!-- Page 82
+ --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page82"></a>{82}</span>completely
+ absorbed the six smaller ones, and only one large drop will remain.</p>
+
+ <div class="figright" style="width:14%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig23.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig23.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 23." title="Fig. 23." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 23.</span>&mdash;Attraction between coloured
+ drops in an isotonic solution.
+ </div>
+
+ <p><i>Incubation.</i>&mdash;In the living organism we frequently find
+ conditions similar to those realized in this experiment, viz. very slow
+ movements of diffusion in liquids containing particles in suspension. In
+ such cases the consequences must be the same, viz. granulation and
+ segmentation. Consider for a moment the incubation of an egg. The heat of
+ incubation determines a certain amount of evaporation through the shell,
+ with a concentration of the liquid near the surface. As a consequence of
+ this superficial concentration we get segmentation of the vitellus, with
+ the production of a morula.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Artificial Parthenogenesis.</i>&mdash;The experimental
+ parthenogenesis of Loeb and Delage consists in plunging the egg into a
+ liquid other than sea water, and returning it again to its original
+ medium. This operation will necessarily determine slow movements of
+ diffusion in the egg, which will give rise to segmentation. It may be
+ objected that segmentation is also produced by a solution which is
+ isotonic with sea water. Such a solution would not indeed produce an
+ exchange of water with the egg, but it would set up an exchange of
+ electrolytes, since there would be a difference of their osmotic pressure
+ in the egg and in the new isotonic medium. The extremely slow movements
+ of diffusion thus produced would be very favourable to the action of the
+ cohesive force on the particles in suspension, and hence to the
+ segmentation of the egg.</p>
+
+ <div class="figleft" style="width:34%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig24.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig24.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 24." title="Fig. 24." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 24.</span>&mdash;A circle of eight drops of
+ Indian ink 30 minutes after they have been sown in a salt solution. The
+ drops have undergone diffusion and subsequent cohesion, resulting in a
+ reticulate structure.
+ </div>
+
+ <p>Few physical phenomena give us a deeper insight into the phenomena of
+ life than those which we here contemplate. There is still another
+ experiment which is even more convincing. On the surface of our
+ horizontal salt solution we sow a number of drops of a more concentrated
+ salt solution at equal distances around the circumference of a circle.
+ Movements of diffusion are thus set up in the interior of the circle, and
+ after a time, when this diffusion has become so slow as to be almost
+ imperceptible, a furrow begins to appear in the coloured mass. Then a
+ second and third appear, and others crossing the former break up the mass
+ <!-- Page 83 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page83"></a>{83}</span>into segments. Finally the segmentation
+ becomes complete, and the preparation presents a muriform appearance,
+ looking in fact something like a mulberry (Fig. 24). If the preparation
+ is preserved for several hours longer, we may see the cells formed by
+ segmentation unite around the circumference so as to form a hollow bag
+ corresponding to a gastrula, as shown in Fig. 25.</p>
+
+ <div class="figright" style="width:30%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig25.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig25.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 25." title="Fig. 25." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 25.</span>&mdash;The same preparation several
+ hours later, showing a cellular gastrula-like structure.
+ </div>
+
+ <p>These preparations are extremely sensitive to external influences,
+ which renders the demonstration of cohesion phenomena difficult. I have
+ nevertheless on several occasions been able to project the experiment on
+ the screen during a lecture. The segmentation is influenced by very
+ slight currents of diffusion, and I have many preparations showing the
+ segmentation regularly distributed in various ways along radial diffusion
+ lines. We may in this way produce many varieties of structure lamellar,
+ vacuolate, or cellular, in fact <!-- Page 84 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page84"></a>{84}</span>all the tissue structures which are met with
+ in living organisms. All these structures are retractile, the retraction
+ going on very slowly for a long time, as if the force of cohesion
+ continued to act in the web of the structure even after its formation was
+ complete. The phenomenon is a purely physical synthetic reproduction of
+ the phenomenon of coagulation, the cohesion figure being in fact a
+ retractile clot.</p>
+
+ <div class="figleft" style="width:32%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig26.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig26.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 26." title="Fig. 26." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 26.</span>&mdash;Field of crystallization of
+ sodium chloride (magnified 60 diameters).
+ </div>
+
+ <p><i>Crystallization.</i>&mdash;When we evaporate a solution of a
+ crystalloid it becomes more concentrated, slow movements of diffusion are
+ set up, and at a given moment agglomeration occurs, the agglomerates
+ taking the form of crystals. Thus crystallization may be regarded as a
+ particular case of conglomeration by cohesion, differing only in the
+ regularity of the arrangement of the molecules, which gives the
+ geometrical form of the crystal. Hence we can easily understand how the
+ presence of a crystalline fragment may facilitate the process of
+ crystallization. Consider a liquid in which extremely slow movements of
+ diffusion are taking place. If the liquid is perfectly homogeneous there
+ will be no centre of attraction to which the molecules may become
+ attached. <!-- Page 85 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page85"></a>{85}</span></p>
+
+ <div class="figright" style="width:30%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig27.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig27.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 27." title="Fig. 27." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 27.</span>&mdash;Field of crystallization around
+ a crystal of sodium chloride in process of formation.
+ </div>
+
+ <p>If, however, a crystal or other heterogeneous structure is present, it
+ forms a centre of cohesion which will attach any molecules that are
+ brought by diffusion into its sphere of attraction. We have succeeded in
+ photographing the arrangement of the molecules of a liquid around a
+ crystal in the act of formation (Fig. 26). For this purpose we add to the
+ solution traces of some colloidal substance, such as gelatine or gum, so
+ as to delay the crystallization. It may thus be shown that the molecules
+ of the surrounding liquid are already arranged in crystalline order for
+ some distance from the crystal, forming a sort of field of
+ crystallization. The arrangement of this regular field varies in
+ different cases, and is more or less complicated according to
+ circumstances. One of the most frequent forms is that shown in Fig. 27,
+ which is the field around a crystal of sodium chloride. In the centre
+ <!-- Page 86 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page86"></a>{86}</span>of
+ the crystal is a square with well-marked outline. At each corner of this
+ square there is a straight line at right angles to the diagonal, which
+ will form the sides of the crystal in process of formation. From the
+ middle of each side arise yet other perpendiculars, which in their turn
+ bear other cross lines, each new line being set at right angles to its
+ predecessor. A later stage of crystallization is shown in Fig. 27, where
+ the two squares one inside the other at an angle of 45° are clearly
+ indicated.</p>
+
+ <div class="figright" style="width:41%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig28.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig28.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 28." title="Fig. 28." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 28.</span>&mdash;Three crystals of sodium
+ chloride in process of formation, each in the centre of a field of
+ crystallization.
+ </div>
+
+ <p>Every crystallizable substance gives a different characteristic field
+ of crystallization. In 1903, at the Congress of Angers, I terminated my
+ address by these words: "The field of crystallization may serve to
+ determine the character of a substance in solution." I have subsequently
+ received from Carbonell y Solès of Barcelona an interesting work on this
+ subject, which he contributed to the International Congress of Medicine
+ at Madrid in 1903, entitled <i>Applicacion de la crystalogenia
+ experimental à la investigacion toxicologica de cas alcaloïdes</i>. <!--
+ Page 87 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page87"></a>{87}</span></p>
+
+ <p>Six years ago I received from Australia an exceedingly beautiful
+ photograph of a thin pellicle found in a rain gauge. My correspondent
+ supposed that this strange figure might have been produced under the
+ influence of an electric or magnetic field. I was able to assure him by
+ return of post that the figure was the result of the crystallization of
+ copper sulphate in a colloidal medium. In return I received a letter
+ verifying this fact, and saying that there were copper works in the
+ neighbourhood, and the air was filled with the dust of copper
+ sulphate.</p>
+
+ <p>Living beings are but solutions of colloids and crystalloids, and
+ their tissues are built up by the aggregation of these solutes. We have
+ already seen how the forces of crystallization are modified in colloid
+ solutions. This force of crystallization must play an important rôle in
+ the metamorphoses of the living organism, and influence their morphology.
+ It may therefore be of interest to investigate some of the numberless
+ forms of crystallization in colloidal solutions.</p>
+
+ <div class="figleft" style="width:32%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig29.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig29.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 29." title="Fig. 29." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 29.</span>&mdash;Crystallization of sodium
+ chloride in a colloidal solution, giving a plant-like form.
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="figright" style="width:37%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig30.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig30.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 30." title="Fig. 30." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 30.</span>&mdash;Form produced by the
+ crystallization of chloride of ammonium in a colloidal solution.
+ </div>
+
+ <p>Figs. 29 and 30 represent the forms produced by chloride of sodium and
+ chloride of ammonium respectively, in solutions of gelatine of different
+ degrees of concentration. Their resemblance to vegetable growth is so
+ remarkable that several observers on first seeing them have called them
+ "Fern-crystals."</p>
+
+ <p>I should like here to recall to your notice the work of an English
+ observer, Dr. E. Montgomery of St. Thomas's <!-- Page 88 --><span
+ class="pagenum"><a name="page88"></a>{88}</span>Hospital, which was
+ published as long ago as 1865. This work was recently brought to my
+ notice by the kindness of Professor Baumler of Freiburg. He says:
+ "Crystals are not strangers in the organic world. Many organic compounds
+ are able to assume crystalline forms under certain conditions. Rainey has
+ shown that many shells consist of globular crystals <i>i.e.</i> of
+ mineral substances made to crystallize by the influence of viscid
+ material." In this connection I may also mention the interesting work of
+ Otto Lehmann of Karlsruhe on liquid crystals.</p>
+
+ <p>In conclusion, we may recall the words of Schwann himself, the
+ originator of the cell theory: "The formation of the elementary shapes of
+ an organism is but a crystallization of substances capable of imbibition.
+ The organism is but an aggregate of such imbibing crystals."</p>
+
+ <p><br style="clear:both" /></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p><!-- Page 89 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page89"></a>{89}</span></p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER VIII</h3>
+
+<p class="cenhead">KARYOKINESIS</p>
+
+ <p>In 1873, Hermann Fol, writing of the eggs of Geryonia, thus describes
+ the phenomenon of karyokinesis: "On either side of the residue of the
+ nucleus there appears a concentration of plasma, thus forming two
+ perfectly regular star-like figures, whose rays are straight lines of
+ granulations. There are other curved rays which pass from one star or
+ centre of attraction to the other. The whole figure is extraordinarily
+ distinct, recalling in a striking manner the arrangement of iron filings
+ surrounding the poles of a magnet. Sachs' theory is that the division of
+ the nucleus is caused by centres of attraction, and I agree with him, not
+ on theoretical grounds, but because I have actually seen these centres of
+ attraction."</p>
+
+ <p>Since the discovery of Hermann Fol, a great number of explanations
+ have been given, all of them theoretical, to account for the figures and
+ phenomena of karyokinesis. Many of these so-called explanations are
+ mechanical, while others invoke the aid of magnetism or electricity to
+ account for the resemblance of the figures of karyokinesis to the
+ magnetic or electric phantom or spectre. Among the authors who have dealt
+ with this question we may mention Hartog of Cork, Gallardo of Buenos
+ Ayres, and Rhumbler of Göttingen.</p>
+
+ <p>In 1904 I presented to the Grenoble Congress, and in 1906 to the Lyons
+ Congress, a series of photographs and preparations of experimental
+ karyokinesis. I showed how, in a solution analogous to that found in the
+ natural cell, the simple processes of liquid diffusion, without the
+ intervention of magnetism or electricity, may reproduce with perfect
+ accuracy and in their normal sequence the whole of the movements and <!--
+ Page 90 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page90"></a>{90}</span>figures
+ which characterize the phenomenon of karyokinesis. This experiment
+ consists not merely in the production of a certain figure, such as is
+ obtained in the magnetic spectre, but in the reproduction of the movement
+ itself, and of all the successive forms which are seen in the natural
+ phenomenon. These are evolved before the eyes of the spectator in their
+ regular order and sequence.</p>
+
+ <p>I may here reproduce the text of my communication at Grenoble: "Until
+ I introduced the conception of a field of diffusion, there was no proper
+ means of studying the phenomena of diffusion, which obey the laws of a
+ field of force as expounded by Faraday. Moreover, no one suspected the
+ possibility of reproducing by liquid diffusion a spectre analogous to the
+ electro-magnetic phantom. Guided by this theory of a diffusion field of
+ force, I have been able to reproduce experimentally the figures of
+ karyokinesis by simple diffusion. With regard to the achromatin spindle,
+ Professor Hartog has shown that the two poles of the spindle are of the
+ same sign, and not of opposite signs as was at first supposed. In the
+ process of karyokinesis the two centrosomes, <i>i.e.</i> the two poles of
+ the achromatin spindle, repel one another. They must therefore be poles
+ of the same sign. An electric or magnetic spectre showing a spindle
+ between two poles of the same sign is unknown; such a thing would appear
+ to be an absolute impossibility. What is impossible in electricity and
+ magnetism, however, is quite possible in the artificial diffusion field;
+ we can here have a spindle between two poles which repel one
+ another&mdash;that is, between poles of the same sign. Fig. 31 is a
+ photograph of such a spindle produced by diffusion. On either side are
+ two poles of concentration, which represent the centrosomes, each pole
+ being surrounded by a star-like radiation. These poles being alike, repel
+ one another. In the preparation one may see the distance between the two
+ poles slowly increase, the poles gradually separating from one another
+ just as do the centrosomes of an ovum during karyokinesis. This
+ preparation, then, which is produced entirely by diffusion, presents a
+ perfect resemblance to the achromatin spindle in <span class="correction"
+ title="Original reads 'karineyoksis'.">karyokinesis</span>. <!-- Page 91
+ --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page91"></a>{91}</span></p>
+
+ <div class="figright" style="width:39%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig31.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig31.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 31." title="Fig. 31." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 31.</span>&mdash;Diffusion figure representing
+ karyokinesis. Achromatin spindle between two similar poles of
+ concentration.
+ </div>
+
+ <p>"The spindle of which we give a photograph in Fig. 31 was made by
+ placing in salt water a drop of the same solution pigmented with blood or
+ Indian ink, and placing on either side of this central drop a hypertonic
+ drop of salt solution more lightly coloured. After diffusion had gone on
+ for some minutes, we obtained the figure which we have photographed. I
+ would draw your attention to the equatorial plane, which shows that the
+ spindle is not formed by lines of force passing from one pole to the
+ other, as would be the case between two poles of contrary sign, but by
+ two forces acting in opposite directions. On either side the pigment of
+ the central drop has been drawn towards the hypertonic centre nearest to
+ it. In the median line, however, the pigment is attracted in opposite
+ directions by equal forces, and therefore remains undisturbed, marking
+ the position of the equatorial plane. This observation applies equally to
+ the equatorial plane in natural karyokinesis, whose existence is thus
+ readily explained.</p>
+
+ <p>"It is hardly necessary to insist on the fact that liquid preparations
+ like these are of extreme delicacy and sensitiveness, and require for
+ their production, and still more for their photography, the greatest care
+ and skill, which can only be acquired by long practice. <!-- Page 92
+ --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page92"></a>{92}</span></p>
+
+ <p>"We are able to produce by diffusion not only the achromatin spindle,
+ but also the segmentation of the chromatin, and the division of the
+ nucleus. If in the saline solution we place a coloured isotonic drop
+ between two coloured hypertonic drops, all the figures and movements of
+ karyokinesis appear successively in their due order. The central drop,
+ representing the nucleus between the two lateral drops or centrosomes,
+ first becomes granular. Next we see what appears to be a rolled-up ribbon
+ analogous to the chromatin band, which soon breaks into fragments
+ analogous to the chromosomes. These arrange themselves around, and are
+ gradually attracted towards the centrosomes, where they accumulate to
+ form two pigmented nuclear masses. A partition then makes its appearance
+ in the median line, and this partition becomes continuous with the
+ boundary of the spheres around the centrosomes. Finally we have two cells
+ in juxtaposition, each with its nucleus, its protoplasm, and its
+ enveloping membrane. I have been able to photograph these successive
+ stages of the segmentation of the chromatin just as I have those of the
+ achromatin spindle" (Fig. 32).</p>
+
+ <div class="figright" style="width:24%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig32.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig32.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 32." title="Fig. 32." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 32.</span>&mdash;Four successive stages in the
+ production of artificial karyokinesis by diffusion.
+ </div>
+
+ <p>This memoir, written in 1904, clearly asserts the homopolarity of the
+ centrosomes, and shows that the nuclear division is the result of a
+ bipolar action, two poles of the same sign exerting their influence on
+ opposite sides of the nucleus. It also emphasizes the important fact that
+ diffusion, <!-- Page 93 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page93"></a>{93}</span>and as far as we know diffusion alone, is
+ able to produce a spindle between homologous poles.</p>
+
+ <p>A glance at the photograph is enough to show that the spindle is
+ formed between poles of the same sign. The lines of diffusion radiate
+ from one centre and converge towards the other centre in curves, giving
+ the double convergence characteristic of a spindle. The central drop
+ merely supplies the necessary material, and should have a concentration
+ but slightly less than that of the plasma, so as not to set up its own
+ lines of diffusion. The photograph shows clearly that the rays of the
+ spindle traverse the equator without any break. It has been objected that
+ these lines form not so much a spindle as two hemi-spindles, but it is
+ clear that these two hemi-spindles are continuous and form a single sheaf
+ of rays uniting the two poles of concentration. This is a phenomenon
+ entirely unknown in the magnetic or electric fields, where two poles of
+ the same sign, one on either side of a pole of the contrary sign, give
+ two separate spindles. In a magnetic field it is impossible to make the
+ lines emanating from one pole converge, except to a pole of opposite
+ sign. Hence if we admit the homopolarity of the centrosomes, we must also
+ admit that diffusion is the <i>vera causa</i> of karyokinesis, since, as
+ I showed at the Grenoble Congress in 1904, diffusion and diffusion alone
+ is capable of producing a spindle between two poles of the same sign.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Nuclear Division.</i>&mdash;In order to reproduce artificially the
+ phenomena attending the division of the nucleus, we may proceed as
+ follows. We cover a perfectly horizontal glass plate with a
+ semi-saturated solution of potassium nitrate to represent the cytoplasm
+ of the cell. The nucleus in the centre is reproduced by a drop of the
+ same solution coloured by a trace of Indian ink, the solid particles of
+ which will represent the chromatin granules of the nucleus. The addition
+ of the Indian ink will have slightly lowered the concentration of the
+ central drop, and this is in accordance with nature, since the osmotic
+ pressure of the nucleus is somewhat less than that of the plasma. We next
+ place on either side of the drop which represents the <!-- Page 94
+ --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page94"></a>{94}</span>nucleus a
+ coloured drop of solution more concentrated than the cytoplasm solution.
+ The particles of Indian ink in the central drop arrange themselves in a
+ long coloured ribbon, apparently rolled up in a coil, the edges of the
+ ribbon having a beaded appearance. After a short time the ribbon loses
+ its beaded appearance and becomes smooth, with a double outline, as is
+ shown in A, Fig. 32. This coil or skein of ribbon subsequently divides,
+ forming a nuclear spindle, while the chromatin substance collects
+ together in the equatorial plane as in B, Fig. 32.</p>
+
+ <p>A more advanced stage of the nuclear division is shown at C, Fig. 32,
+ where the chromatin bands of artificial chromosomes are grouped in two
+ conical sheafs converging towards the two centrosomes. For some
+ considerable time these conical bundles remain united by fine filaments,
+ the last vestiges of the nuclear spindle. The final stage is that of two
+ artificial cells in juxtaposition, whose nuclei are formed by the
+ original centrosomes augmented by the chromatin bands or chromosomes
+ (Fig. 32, D).</p>
+
+ <div class="figright" style="width:27%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig33.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig33.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 33." title="Fig. 33." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 33.</span>&mdash;Equatorial crown produced by
+ diffusion.
+ </div>
+
+ <p>The resemblance of these successive phenomena to those of natural
+ karyokinesis is of the closest. The experiment shows that diffusion is
+ quite sufficient to produce organic karyokinesis, and that the only
+ physical force required is that of osmotic pressure. If in the cytoplasm
+ of a cell there are two points of molecular concentration greater than
+ that of the general mass, the nucleus must necessarily divide with all
+ the phenomena which accompany karyokinesis. In nature these two centres
+ of positive concentration are introduced into the protoplasm of the cell
+ by fecundation&mdash;that is, by the entrance of the centrosomes of the
+ sperm cell. In certain abnormal cases the concentration may be produced
+ in the cell itself by the formation of two centres of catabolism or
+ molecular disintegration, since, as we have seen, molecular
+ disintegration raises the osmotic pressure. This phenomenon, namely the
+ production of karyokinesis from centres of catabolism, may account for
+ the abnormal karyokinesis of cancer cells and the like. The subject is
+ one which would well repay further investigation. <!-- Page 95 --><span
+ class="pagenum"><a name="page95"></a>{95}</span></p>
+
+ <div class="figleft" style="width:35%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig34.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig34.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 34." title="Fig. 34." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 34.</span>&mdash;A triaster produced by
+ diffusion.
+ </div>
+
+ <p>It has been found in our experiments that in order to obtain the
+ regular division of the artificial nucleus represented by the
+ intermediary drop, the latter must have an osmotic pressure slightly
+ below that of the plasma. This leads to the supposition that a similar
+ condition must obtain in the natural cell. It may be noticed, moreover,
+ that the grains of pigment follow the direction of the flow of water,
+ being carried along by the stream. This would appear to show that the
+ nucleus of a natural cell has also a molecular concentration less than
+ that of the plasma&mdash;a result either of dehydration of the plasma, or
+ of some diminution in the molecular concentration of the nucleus.</p>
+
+ <p>Other phenomena of karyokinesis may also be closely imitated by
+ diffusion. For instance, in the diffusion preparation we notice at each
+ extremity of the equator a V-shaped figure with its apex towards the
+ centre, corresponding exactly to what in natural karyokinesis is called
+ the equatorial crown.</p>
+
+ <p>We may also produce diffusion figures of abnormal karyokinesis. Fig.
+ 34 represents such a form, a triaster produced by diffusion.</p>
+
+ <p>Artificial karyokinesis may also be produced by hypotonic poles of
+ concentration&mdash;that is to say, when the central drop representing
+ the ovum is positive and the lateral drops representing the centrosomes
+ are negative with respect to the plasma. In this case, however, the
+ resemblance to natural karyokinesis is less perfect. <!-- Page 96
+ --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page96"></a>{96}</span></p>
+
+ <p>Without attaching to it an importance which is not warranted by
+ experimental results, it is interesting to note that we have here two
+ methods of fertilization, hypertonic and hypotonic, <i>i.e.</i> by
+ centrosomes of greater concentration and by centrosomes of less
+ concentration than that of the plasma of the ovum, and that we have in
+ nature two corresponding results, viz. two different sexes. It is
+ possible that we have in these two methods of producing nuclear division
+ the secret of the difference of sex.</p>
+
+ <p><br style="clear:both" /></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p><!-- Page 97 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page97"></a>{97}</span></p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER IX</h3>
+
+<p class="cenhead">ENERGETICS</p>
+
+ <p>Movement is everywhere; there is no such thing as immobility; the very
+ idea of rest is itself an illusion. Immobility is only apparent and
+ relative, and disappears under closer examination. All terrestrial
+ objects are driven with prodigious velocity around the sun, and the
+ dwellers on the earth's equator travel each day around the 40,000
+ kilometres of its circumference. All objects on the globe are in motion,
+ the inanimate as well as the living. The waters rise in vapour from the
+ sea, float over mountain and valley, and return down the rivers to the
+ sea again. Still more marvellous is the current of water which flows
+ eternally from dew and rain, through the sap of plants and the blood of
+ animals to the mineral world again. The very mountains crumble and their
+ substance is washed down into the plains; the winds move the air and
+ raise the waves of the sea, whilst the strong ocean currents are produced
+ by variations of temperature in different parts. This agitation, this
+ incessant and universal motion, has been a favourite subject of poetic
+ contemplation. Heraclitus writes: "There is a perpetual flow, all is one
+ universal current; nothing remains as it was, change alone is eternal."
+ Ovid writes in his <i>Metamorphoses</i>: "Believe me, nothing perishes in
+ this vast universe, but all varies, and changes its figure. I think that
+ nothing endures long under the same appearance. What was solid earth has
+ become sea, and solid ground has issued from the bosom of the
+ waters."</p>
+
+ <p>The French poetess Mme. Ackermann has expressed the same idea in
+ beautiful verse:&mdash;</p>
+
+ <div class="poem">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <p class="hg3">"Ainsi, jamais d'arrêt. L'immortelle matière,</p>
+ <p>Un seul instant encore n'a pu se reposer.</p>
+ <p>La Nature ne fait, patiente ouvrière,</p>
+ <p>Que défaire et recomposer.</p>
+<!-- Page 98 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page98"></a>{98}</span>
+ <p>Tout se métamorphose entre ses mains actives;</p>
+ <p>Partout le mouvement incessant et divers,</p>
+ <p>Dans le cercle éternel des formes fugitives,</p>
+ <p>Agitant l'immense univers."</p>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+
+ <p>It was only towards the middle of last century that mankind in the
+ long search after unity in nature began to realize that all the movements
+ of the universe are the manifestations of a single agent, which we call
+ energy. In reality all the phenomena of nature may be conceived as
+ diverse forms of motion, and the word "energy" is the common expression
+ applied to all the various modes of motion in the universe. It was by the
+ study of heat, and more especially of thermodynamics, that we obtained
+ our conceptions of the science of energetics.</p>
+
+ <p>It was in Munich in 1798 that the English engineer Count Rumford first
+ observed that in the operation of boring a cannon the copper was heated
+ to such a degree that the shavings became red-hot. This suggested his
+ famous experiment, in which a heavy iron pestle was turned by horse power
+ in a metal mortar filled with water. The water boiled, and when more
+ water was added this also became heated to ebullition, and so on
+ indefinitely. Rumford argued that the heat thus obtained in an indefinite
+ quantity could not be a material substance; that motion was the only
+ thing added to the water without limit, and that therefore heat must be
+ motion.</p>
+
+ <p>While Rumford's experiment showed the transformation of motion into
+ heat, the steam engine was soon afterwards to demonstrate the opposite
+ transformation, viz. that of heat into motion.</p>
+
+ <p>The actual state of our knowledge with regard to the science of energy
+ rests on two principles, that of Mayer and that of Carnot.</p>
+
+ <p>The first principle was defined by J. R. Mayer, a medical practitioner
+ of Heilbronn, whose work, <i>Bemerkungen ueber die Kräfte der unbelebten
+ Natur</i>, was published in 1842. "All physical phenomena," says Mayer,
+ "whether vital or chemical, are forms of motion. All these forms of
+ motion are susceptible of change into one another, and in all the
+ transformations the <!-- Page 99 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page99"></a>{99}</span>quantity of mechanical work represented by
+ different modes of motion remains invariable."</p>
+
+ <p>The energy of a given body is the amount of transferable motion stored
+ up in that body, and is measured by its capacity of producing mechanical
+ work.</p>
+
+ <p>Ostwald thus defines energy: "Energy is work, all that can be obtained
+ from work, and all that can be changed into work." Different forms of
+ energy may be measured in different ways, but all forms of energy can be
+ measured either in units of mechanical work or in units of heat, in
+ kilogramme-metres or foot-pounds or in calories, according as the energy
+ in question is transformed into mechanical work or into heat. The first
+ principle of energetics, the conservation of energy, may be thus
+ expressed: "Energy is eternal; none is ever created, and none is ever
+ lost. The quantity of energy in the universe is invariable, and is
+ conserved for ever in its integrity."</p>
+
+ <p>The unit by which we measure quantities of heat is the calory, the
+ amount of heat required to raise the temperature of one kilogramme of
+ water one degree Centigrade.</p>
+
+ <p>The practical unit of mechanical work is the kilogramme-metre, the
+ work required to raise the weight of one kilogramme to the height of one
+ metre. The theoretical unit of work is one erg, the work required to move
+ a mass of one gramme through one centimetre against a force of one
+ dyne.</p>
+
+ <p>Joule of Manchester was the first to verify Mayer's law
+ quantitatively. By an experiment analogous to that of Rumford, he
+ transformed work into heat, arranging his apparatus so that he might
+ measure the amount of heat produced and the work expended. On dividing
+ the quantity of work that had disappeared by the quantity of heat which
+ had been disengaged, he found that 424 kilogramme-metres of work had been
+ expended for each calory of heat produced.</p>
+
+ <p>Hirn of Colmar measured the ratio of work to heat in the steam engine.
+ He found that for each calory of heat which had disappeared there were
+ produced 425 kilogramme-metres of work. <!-- Page 100 --><span
+ class="pagenum"><a name="page100"></a>{100}</span></p>
+
+ <p>This number 425 has therefore been accepted as representing in
+ calories and kilogramme-metres the transformation of work into heat, and
+ of heat into work.</p>
+
+ <p>Further measurements on the transformations of other forms of energy,
+ chemical energy and electrical energy, have shown that Joule's law of
+ equivalents is general, and that the quantity of mechanical work
+ represented by any form of energy remains undiminished after
+ transformation, whatever the nature of that transformation.</p>
+
+ <p>Energy presents itself to us under two forms, potential and actual.
+ Potential energy is slumbering energy, energy localized or locked up in
+ the body. In order to transform potential energy into actual energy,
+ there is required the intervention of an additional awakening,
+ stimulating, or exciting energy from without. This stimulating energy may
+ be almost infinitesimal in amount and bears no quantitative relation to
+ the amount of energy transformed. It is the small amount of work required
+ to turn the key which liberates an indeterminate quantity of potential
+ energy.</p>
+
+ <p>Actual energy, on the other hand, is energy in movement, awake and
+ alert, ready to be transformed into any other form of energy without the
+ intervention of any such external stimulating force.</p>
+
+ <p>The passage of a given quantity of energy from the potential into the
+ actual state is effected gradually, and during the time of transformation
+ the sum of the actual and the potential energy remains constant.</p>
+
+ <p>A weight suspended by a cord possesses a quantity of potential energy
+ equal to the product of its weight into the height through which it can
+ fall. This energy is locked up in a certain space, it cannot be
+ transformed without the intervention of some external energy to cut the
+ cord. During the falling of the weight, at the middle of its path, half
+ of this slumbering energy has become kinetic, and is represented by the
+ <i>vis viva</i> of the weight, while the other half is still potential
+ and is equivalent to the work which the weight will accomplish during the
+ second half of its fall. At any moment the sum of these two energies, the
+ sleeping and the waking <!-- Page 101 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page101"></a>{101}</span>energies, represents the total potential
+ energy of the weight before it began to fall.</p>
+
+ <p>So with the powder in a gun. The potential energy of the powder cannot
+ become actual without some stimulus, some exciting force from without to
+ set it free. It is the external work of pressing the trigger that
+ liberates the potential energy of the powder, transforming it into the
+ actual energy of combustion, and the kinetic energy of the
+ projectile.</p>
+
+ <p>Since energy is work, and work is a function of motion, there is in
+ reality no such thing as energy in repose. Matter according to our modern
+ conception is a complex of molecules, atoms, and electrons; we conceive
+ the molecules of matter as always in movement, animated with cyclic or
+ vibratory motion, these oscillatory or rotatory movements representing
+ the potential energy of the body in question. Potential energy is thus
+ the expression of molecular motion without translation of the molecules
+ as a whole in space.</p>
+
+ <p>When this potential energy is transformed into actual energy by the
+ intervention of some external force, we get a current of energy, a
+ transference of the molecules in space. Thus, when an external force has
+ released the weight, the molecular orbits in the falling body change in
+ form, and the potential energy of the molecular motion becomes the
+ kinetic energy of the falling body. Similarly in the conduction of heat,
+ the energy of the hot body is transferred to a colder body by
+ transmission of the vibratory motion from molecule to molecule. So again
+ with chemical energy, the molecular motion of combustion may be
+ transformed into the radiant energy of the ethereal waves.</p>
+
+ <p>Actual energy may be regarded as a current of molecular motion. To
+ make the matter clearer, let a mass of matter be represented by a
+ regiment of soldiers. Then each soldier will represent an electron, a
+ company will be an atom, and a battalion will be a molecule. As long as
+ the soldiers mark time, turn, or otherwise exercise without advancing, we
+ have simply an accumulation of potential energy. The word of command,
+ "March," is the exciting force which suddenly transforms this potential
+ into kinetic energy. The marching <!-- Page 102 --><span
+ class="pagenum"><a name="page102"></a>{102}</span>regiment is a
+ representation of a body possessing kinetic energy. Potential energy is
+ energy confined to a certain point in space, whereas actual energy is a
+ current of energy, continually changing its place or form. Energy is like
+ water-power&mdash;potential in the lake, actual in the waterfall or
+ river.</p>
+
+ <p>Any mechanism capable of causing one form of energy to pass into
+ another is a transformer of energy. A steam engine is a transformer of
+ energy, changing caloric energy into mechanical work. An electrical
+ machine is a transformer of energy, converting mechanical motion into a
+ current of electricity, whilst an electro-motor changes the movement of
+ electrons into mechanical movement. Every living being, and even man
+ himself, is but a transformer of energy, changing the energy derived from
+ the earth and air and sun into mechanical motion, nervous energy, and
+ heat.</p>
+
+ <p>The first law of energetics, that of the conservation of energy, is
+ analogous to Lavoisier's principle in chemistry, the conservation of
+ matter. The sign of equality which unites the terms of a chemical
+ equation expresses the fact that after every chemical reaction the same
+ total mass of matter is present as before the transformation. This is
+ also true of energy; after every transformation we find exactly the same
+ total quantity of energy as before it. This, however, tells us nothing as
+ to the conditions of the transformation, or the causes, <i>i.e.</i> the
+ anterior phenomena, which determined such transformation.</p>
+
+ <p>The second principle of energetics, that of Carnot, enunciated in
+ 1824, deals with the conditions under which a transformation of energy is
+ possible. A mass of water at a certain height represents a quantity of
+ potential energy equal to the product of its weight by its height; but
+ this energy cannot produce mechanical work unless the water is allowed to
+ fall. Consider two lakes at the same altitude and of the same capacity,
+ one of which is entirely landlocked, while the other has an open channel
+ leading to the sea. Each lake represents the same quantity of potential
+ energy, but the energy of the landlocked lake is useless, it cannot be
+ <!-- Page 103 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page103"></a>{103}</span>transformed; whereas the other lake whose
+ water can run into the sea realizes the conditions necessary for
+ utilization, viz. the transformability of its energy. The same may be
+ said of all forms of energy; a heat engine can only act as a transformer,
+ change heat into work, if there is a difference of temperature between
+ its source and its sink; an electric motor can only work if there is a
+ fall of potential between the entrance and the exit of the electric
+ current.</p>
+
+ <p>Energy presents itself to us as the product of two factors, weight and
+ height in the waterfall, quantity and temperature in the heat engine,
+ current intensity and potential in the electric motor.</p>
+
+ <p>In considering these two factors we may note that one factor is always
+ a quantity (Q) and the other an intensity (I). This latter expresses some
+ sort of difference of position or condition, the height of the weight, a
+ difference of temperature in the heat engine, of pressure in the gas
+ engine, or of electric potential in the dynamo or electric furnace. There
+ can be no current of energy without this difference of potential, and
+ therefore no transformation from one form of energy to another.</p>
+
+ <p>The second law of thermodynamics, Carnot's law, may therefore be
+ enunciated thus: "Energy cannot be transformed without a fall of
+ potential."</p>
+
+ <p>We may also derive this principle from a consideration of the formula
+ of efficiency, the ratio of the work done by the transformer to the work
+ done on the transformer.</p>
+
+ <div class="poem">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <p>Efficiency = energy transformed / total energy absorbed</p>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+
+ <p>The total energy is the product QI, <i>i.e.</i> the product of the
+ total quantity by the total intensity at our disposal. The transformed
+ energy is Q(I - I&prime;), the product of the total quantity by the
+ difference of intensity at the inlet and at the outlet of the machine.
+ The formula for efficiency thus becomes</p>
+
+ <div class="poem">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <p>Q(I - I&prime;) / QI = (I - I&prime;) / I.</p>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+
+ <p> If I represents a temperature, then in order that the efficiency may
+ be positive I&prime; must be less than I, <!-- Page 104 --><span
+ class="pagenum"><a name="page104"></a>{104}</span>there must be a fall of
+ temperature in the machine. If I&prime; were greater than I, <i>i.e.</i>
+ if the temperature at the outlet were greater than that at the inlet, the
+ efficiency would be a negative one, and the transformer would have to
+ borrow heat from some external source.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Entropy.</i>&mdash;In every transformation of energy a certain
+ portion of the energy is transformed into heat: a lamp gives out useless
+ heat as well as light, a machine gives out useless heat as well as
+ mechanical work. This loss of useful energy as heat occurs in every
+ transference or transformation of energy; it is only in the case of heat
+ passing from a hotter to a colder body that there is no such
+ transformation. When equality of temperature is established there has
+ been no loss of energy, but the whole of the energy has become
+ unutilizable, i.e. untransformable. In the formula of efficiency the fall
+ of intensity I - I&prime; is now zero, and therefore the efficiency of
+ the machine</p>
+
+ <div class="poem">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <p>(I - I&prime;) / I</p>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+
+ <p>is also zero.</p>
+
+ <p>Since in all its transformations a certain fraction of the energy is
+ changed into heat, there is a tendency in nature for all differences of
+ temperature to become equalized. Hence the quantity of utilizable energy
+ in the universe tends to diminish. Clausius called this unutilizable
+ energy enmeshed in the substance of a body its entropy, and showed that
+ in every transformation the amount of this unutilizable energy tended to
+ increase. "The entropy of a system always tends towards a maximum
+ value."</p>
+
+ <p>If this gradual incessant increase of entropy is universal in nature,
+ and if there is no compensatory mechanism, the universe must be tending
+ towards a definite end, when the whole of its energy shall have been
+ transformed into unutilizable heat with a uniform temperature. There is,
+ however, reason to suppose that some such compensatory mechanism does in
+ fact exist. Behind us stretches an infinite past, and in the future we
+ believe that the phenomena of nature will be unrolled in a cycle which
+ has no end. But the arguments derived from a study of entropy apply only
+ to the facts and phenomena actually under our notice, the supposed <!--
+ Page 105 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page105"></a>{105}</span>impossibility, without borrowing energy
+ from without, of re-establishing the differences of temperature by
+ drawing heat from a colder in order to concentrate it in a hotter body,
+ and may not be absolutely identical with those obtaining in other ages.
+ Our ignorance of such a phenomenon and our powerlessness to produce it in
+ no way argue that it is impossible. It may exist for aught we know in
+ some other region of space, or in another time than ours. We may perhaps
+ some day obtain artificially the conditions which would render possible
+ such a phenomenon, since it may be possible to produce in the
+ experimental laboratory conditions which are not spontaneously realized
+ in nature under present conditions. The future may perchance reveal to us
+ absolutely new phenomena which have not hitherto been realized. In his
+ work on the evolution of matter and of energy Gustave le Bon gives
+ expression to some interesting and original ideas on this subject.</p>
+
+ <p>The laws of Mayer and Carnot alone are not sufficient to explain the
+ phenomena of life, without some consideration of the laws of stimulus.
+ Mayer's principle asserts the conservation of energy, and Carnot's the
+ conditions necessary for its transformation, but these alone cannot
+ account for the transformation of potential into actual energy. A weight
+ suspended by a cord does not fall merely because there is room for its
+ descent. We need the intervention of some outside force to cut the cord.
+ In every transformation of energy this external force is required to cut
+ the cord, or pull the trigger, some external force of excitation or
+ liberation, an energy which may be infinitesimal in amount, and which
+ bears no proportion to the quantity of potential energy it sets free.
+ This intervention of an excitatory, stimulating, or liberating energy is
+ universal. Every phenomenon of nature is but a transformation or a
+ transference of energy, determined by the intervention of a minimal
+ quantity of energy from without. This liberation of large quantities of
+ potential energy by an exceedingly small external stimulus has not
+ hitherto received the consideration it demands. Certain phenomena, such
+ as those of chemical catalysis or the action of soluble ferments, excite
+ our astonishment because such extremely small quantities of <!-- Page 106
+ --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page106"></a>{106}</span>certain
+ substances will determine the chemical transformations of large
+ quantities of matter, there being no proportion between the amount of the
+ catalytic substance and of the matter transformed. These phenomena are,
+ however, only particular cases of the general law of energetics that
+ transformation requires a stimulus. The catalyzer, or ferment, does not
+ contribute matter to the reaction, but only the minimal energy necessary
+ to liberate the chemical potential energy stored in the fermenting
+ substance.</p>
+
+ <p>We must therefore add a third to the two laws of energetics, Mayer's
+ law of conservation, and Carnot's law of fall of potential. This third
+ law is the law of stimulus, the necessity of the intervention of an
+ external excitatory force capable of setting in motion the current of
+ energy required for a transformation. This stimulus is the primary
+ phenomenon, the determinant cause of such transformation.</p>
+
+ <p>Three conditions, then, are required for a transformation or
+ displacement of energy:&mdash;</p>
+
+ <p>1. <i>The cause</i>, the intervention of a stimulus which starts the
+ transformation or displacement.</p>
+
+ <p>2. <i>The possibility</i>, the necessary fall of potential.</p>
+
+ <p>3. <i>The condition</i>, the conservation of the energy concerned,
+ since being indestructible its total quantity cannot alter.</p>
+
+ <p>Every living being is a transformer of energy. The lower animals and
+ man himself receive from food and air the potential energy which becomes
+ actual under the process of oxydation. This chemical combustion is the
+ source of all vital energy; the ancients aptly compared life to a flame,
+ and Lavoisier has shown that life, like the flame, is maintained by a
+ process of oxydation. The energy derived from food and air is restored by
+ the organism to the external world in the form of heat and mechanical
+ motion. The celebrated experiments of Atwater show that there is an
+ absolute equality between the energy obtained from the oxydation of the
+ various aliments and the sum of the calorific and mechanical energy
+ liberated by a living being.</p>
+
+ <p>Man obtains his supply of energy either directly from the <!-- Page
+ 107 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page107"></a>{107}</span>vegetable
+ world, or indirectly from vegetables which have passed through the flesh
+ of animals. Vegetables in their turn obtain their substance from the
+ mineral world and their energy from the sun. The salts, the water, and
+ the carbonic acid absorbed by plants possess no store of potential
+ energy. Whence then can they obtain the potential energy which they
+ transmit to animals and man, if not from the sun? The energy of the solar
+ radiations is absorbed by the chlorophyll of the leaves, and stored up in
+ the organic carbohydrates formed by the synthesis of water and carbon.
+ Chlorophyll has the peculiar property of reducing carbonic acid, and
+ uniting the carbon with water in different proportions to form sugar and
+ starch, whilst fats and vegetable albumens are also formed by an
+ analogous reaction. All these complex bodies are stores of energy; the
+ vital processes of oxydation do but liberate in the human body the energy
+ which the chlorophyll of plants has absorbed from the solar rays.</p>
+
+ <p>We must look, then, to the sun as the direct source of all the energy
+ which animates the surface of the earth. The sun looses the winds, and
+ raises the waters of the sea to the mountain-tops, to form the rivers and
+ torrents which return again to the sea; the sun warms our hearths, drives
+ our ships, and works our steam engines. There is no sign of life or
+ movement on our planet which does not come directly or indirectly from
+ the solar rays.</p>
+
+ <p>It may be asked by what path does the chemical energy of the living
+ organism pass into the mechanical energy of motion. It would appear that
+ the intermediary step cannot be heat, as in the steam engine, since the
+ necessary temperature would be quite incompatible with life.</p>
+
+ <p>The formula for the efficiency of a thermic transformer is</p>
+
+ <div class="poem">
+ <div class="stanza">
+ <p>(T - T&prime;) / T,</p>
+ </div>
+ </div>
+
+ <p>the ratio of the difference of the absolute temperatures at the source
+ and at the sink, to the absolute temperature at the source. Calorimetric
+ measurements have shown that the efficiency of the human machine is about
+ one-fifth, <i>i.e.</i> it can transform 20 per cent. of the energy
+ absorbed. The ordinary temperature of muscle is 38° C., or 311° absolute.
+ We have <!-- Page 108 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page108"></a>{108}</span>therefore (T - 311) / T = .20, or T =
+ 388.75° absolute, <i>i.e.</i> 115.75° C. Thus, in order to obtain an
+ efficiency of 20 per cent. with an ordinary thermic transformer, having a
+ temperature of 38° at the sink, we should need a temperature of over 115°
+ C. at the source. Such a temperature would be quite incompatible with the
+ integrity of living tissues, and we may therefore conclude that the human
+ organism is not a heat engine.</p>
+
+ <p>We are indeed completely ignorant of the mode of transformation of
+ chemical into kinetic energy in the living organism; we know only that
+ muscular contraction is accompanied by a change of form; at the moment of
+ transformation the combustion of the muscle is increased, and during
+ contraction the stretched muscular fibre tends to acquire a spherical
+ shape. It is this shortening of the muscular fibre which produces the
+ mechanical movement. The step which we do not as yet fully understand is
+ the physical phenomenon which intervenes between the disengagement of
+ chemical energy and the occurrence of muscular contraction. Professor
+ d'Arsonval supposes that this missing step is a variation in the surface
+ tension of the liquid in the muscular fibre. The surface tension of a
+ liquid is due to the unbalanced forces of cohesion acting on the surface
+ layer of molecules. Under the attraction of cohesion the molecules within
+ the liquid are in a state of equilibrium, being equally attracted in all
+ directions, but those at the surface of the liquid are drawn towards the
+ centre. The resultant of these attractive forces is a pressure normal to
+ the surface, which is mechanically equivalent to an elastic tension
+ tending to diminish the surface. In consequence of this surface tension
+ the liquid has a tendency to assume the form in which its surface area is
+ a minimum, <i>i.e.</i> the spherical form. If such a sphere is stretched
+ into a cylinder or fibre by mechanical tension, it will shorten itself
+ when released; and if by any means we increase the surface tension of
+ such a liquid fibre it will tend to assume a spherical form and contract
+ just as a muscular fibre does. The surface tension of a liquid varies
+ with its chemical composition; the slightest chemical modification of a
+ liquid alters the force of <!-- Page 109 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page109"></a>{109}</span>this tension. We may therefore explain the
+ mechanism of muscular contraction by supposing that a nervous impulse
+ alters in some way the rate of combustion in a muscular fibre, that this
+ alteration produces a momentary change in the chemical composition of the
+ muscular cell, and that this change of chemical composition increases the
+ surface tension of the cell sufficiently to provoke its contraction into
+ a more spherical form.</p>
+
+ <p>Ostwald has introduced a very useful conception for the study of this
+ question of surface energy. A liquid surface contains a quantity of
+ energy equal to its surface tension multiplied by its area, hence any
+ variation either of area or of tension corresponds to a variation of its
+ energy. This novel conception constitutes a valuable addition to the
+ experimental study of the physiology of muscular action, since it gives
+ us some idea of the mechanism by which chemical energy may be transformed
+ into muscular contraction.</p>
+
+ <p>Whatever the mechanism of transformation in the animal machine, we
+ have to consider the same quantities as in other motor machines. These
+ are: (1) the efficiency; (2) the potential energy; (3) the power; (4) the
+ energy given up to the medium under the form of heat; (5) the
+ temperature.</p>
+
+ <p>Muscles, then, are merely transformers which change chemical energy
+ into mechanical work, the diminution of stored-up energy in a muscle
+ being expressed by the sensation of fatigue. A muscle may be studied in
+ four different phases: (1) in repose; (2) in a state of tension; (3) when
+ doing positive work; (4) when work is being done on it.</p>
+
+ <p>When a muscle is in a state of tension, as when a weight is sustained
+ by the outstretched arm, the muscle is producing no external work. The
+ entire work done is converted into heat; just as it is in a dynamo or
+ steam engine which is prevented from turning by a brake. Muscular
+ contraction produces fatigue even when it does no external work. It is
+ impossible for the muscle to support even the weight of the outstretched
+ arm itself for any considerable time.</p>
+
+ <p>A muscle is doing positive work when it is raising a weight or moving
+ a body from one point to another. <!-- Page 110 --><span
+ class="pagenum"><a name="page110"></a>{110}</span></p>
+
+ <p>The fourth state of muscular contraction is when the muscle is doing
+ negative work, <i>i.e.</i> when work is being done on it, as for instance
+ when we go downstairs, or when a descending weight forces down the
+ opposing arm which attempts to support it. In this case the muscles
+ receive a portion of the energy lost by the descending weight, and this
+ energy shows itself in the muscle in the form of heat. This increase of
+ heat in a muscle doing negative work has been clearly demonstrated by the
+ calorimetric experiments of Hirn and the thermometric experiments of
+ Béclard. Hirn's observations on muscular calorimetry show a production of
+ heat corresponding to 150 calories per hour when in repose, 248 calories
+ per hour during positive work, and 287 during negative work. Béclard's
+ thermometric measurements also show that the temperature of a muscle
+ rises each time that it contracts, and that the rise of temperature is
+ greatest when the muscle is doing negative work, least during positive
+ work, and intermediate when in a state of tension.</p>
+
+ <p>It is of the greatest importance in medical practice to distinguish
+ between these different forms of muscular activity. There is a vast
+ physiological difference between muscular contraction with the production
+ of positive work, and muscular contraction without the production of
+ work, or with negative work. To climb a flight of stairs is to contract
+ the muscles with the production of work equal to the weight of the body
+ multiplied by the height of the stairs. To descend the stairs is to
+ contract the same muscles, but with the production of negative work, and
+ consequently a maximum of heat. To walk on level ground is to contract
+ the muscles with the production of little or no external work; as in a
+ machine turning without friction in a vacuum.</p>
+
+ <p>We have seen that a fall of potential and a current of energy are the
+ necessary conditions for the production of any natural phenomenon. Hence
+ we may assume that the phenomenon of sensation is also accompanied by a
+ fall of potential and a current of energy. When we touch a hot body,
+ there is a flow of energy from the hot body to the hand. When we touch a
+ cold body, there is a current of energy in the opposite direction, <!--
+ Page 111 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page111"></a>{111}</span>from
+ the hand to the body. It was formerly held, and is still held by some
+ physiologists, that the chief characteristic of life is the disproportion
+ between an excitation and the response which it invokes from the
+ organism. Such a doctrine can only be held by one who believes, at least
+ implicitly, that the phenomena of life are supernatural, or at all events
+ different in their nature from all other phenomena; for the disproportion
+ between an excitation and the response it evokes is by no means confined
+ to living things. This disproportion is universal in nature, and quite in
+ conformity with the physical laws which govern the transformation of
+ energy. The energy of living things is potential energy&mdash;a fact
+ which has been too little recognized. In the case of reflex actions it is
+ self-evident, because the response is immediate, and always the same for
+ the same stimulus. As in all other transformations, the stimulus consists
+ in the intervention of a minimal quantity of external energy.</p>
+
+ <p>Long before the discovery of the laws of energy, Lamarck had
+ recognized and formulated this fact. He writes: "What would vegetable
+ life be without excitations from without, what would be the life even of
+ the lower animals without this cause?" In another passage, seeking for a
+ power capable of exciting the action of the organism, he says: "The lower
+ animal forms, without nervous system, live only by the aid of excitations
+ which they receive from without. In the lowest forms of life this
+ exciting force is borrowed directly from the environment, while in the
+ higher forms the external exciting force is transferred to the interior
+ of the living being and placed at the disposal of the individual."</p>
+
+ <p>This remark, that the movements of living things are not communicated
+ but excited, that the external excitation only sets free latent or
+ potential energy in the organism, shows that Lamarck had penetrated more
+ deeply than many of the modern physiologists into the secrets of
+ biological energy. We seek in vain in the text-books of physiology for
+ any conception of potential energy in living beings, or the notion of an
+ exciting force as the cause of sensation. All action of a living organism
+ is reflex action. Every action has a cause, and <!-- Page 112 --><span
+ class="pagenum"><a name="page112"></a>{112}</span>the cause of an organic
+ action is an exciting energy from without, either immediate, or stored up
+ in the nervous system from an external impression made at some previous
+ epoch. Actions which are not evidently reflex are merely delayed
+ reflexes; we have acquired the power of inhibiting, delaying, or
+ modifying the response to an external stimulus, so that the same
+ excitation may determine responses of very different kinds according to
+ the mood produced by previous impressions. When carefully investigated,
+ no action of ours is automatic; every movement is determined by
+ impressions derived from without. An action without a motive, that is
+ without an external determining cause, would be an action without
+ reason.</p>
+
+ <p>In conclusion, we may formulate this general principle: The energy of
+ a living being is potential energy; sensations represent the intervention
+ of an external exciting energy which provokes the response, <i>i.e.</i>
+ the transformation of the potential energy already stored in the organism
+ into the actual energy of motion and vital activity.</p>
+
+ <p><br style="clear:both" /></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p><!-- Page 113 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page113"></a>{113}</span></p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER X</h3>
+
+<p class="cenhead">SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY</p>
+
+ <p>The course of development of every branch of natural science has been
+ the same. It begins by the observation and classification of the objects
+ and phenomena of nature. The next step is to decompose the more complex
+ phenomena in order to determine the physical mechanism underlying
+ them&mdash;the science has become analytical. Finally, when the mechanism
+ of a phenomenon is understood, it becomes possible to reproduce it, to
+ repeat it by directing the physical forces which are its cause&mdash;the
+ science has now become synthetical.</p>
+
+ <p>Modern biology admits that the phenomena of life are physico-chemical
+ in their nature. Although we have not as yet been able to define the
+ exact nature of the physical and chemical processes which underlie all
+ vital phenomena, yet every further discovery confirms our belief that the
+ physical laws of life are identical with those of the mineral world, and
+ modern research tends more and more to prove that life is produced by the
+ same forces and is subject to the same laws that regulate inanimate
+ matter.</p>
+
+ <p>The evolution of biology has been the same as that of the other
+ sciences; it has been successively descriptive, analytical, and
+ synthetic. Just as synthetic chemistry began with the artificial
+ formation of the simplest organic products, so biological synthesis must
+ content itself at first with the fabrication of forms resembling those of
+ the lowest organisms. Like other sciences, synthetic biology must proceed
+ from the simpler to the more complex, beginning with the reproduction of
+ the more elementary vital phenomena. Later on we may hope to <!-- Page
+ 114 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page114"></a>{114}</span>unite and
+ associate these, and to observe their development under various external
+ influences.</p>
+
+ <p>The synthesis of life, should it ever occur, will not be the
+ sensational discovery which we usually associate with the idea. If we
+ accept the theory of evolution, then the first dawn of the synthesis of
+ life must consist in the production of forms intermediate between the
+ inorganic and the organic world&mdash;forms which possess only some of
+ the rudimentary attributes of life, to which other attributes will be
+ slowly added in the course of development by the evolutionary action of
+ the environment.</p>
+
+ <p>Long ago, the penetrating genius of Lamarck seized on the idea that a
+ knowledge of life could only be obtained by the comparison of organic
+ with inorganic phenomena. He writes: "If we would acquire a real
+ knowledge of what constitutes life, of what it consists, what are the
+ causes and the laws which give rise to this wonderful phenomenon of
+ nature, and how life can be the source of the multitude of forms
+ presented to us by living organisms, we must before all consider with
+ great attention the differences which exist between inorganic and living
+ bodies; and for this purpose we must compare side by side the essential
+ characters of these two classes of bodies."</p>
+
+ <p>Synthetic biology includes morphogeny, physiogeny, and synthetic
+ organic chemistry, which is also a branch of synthetic biology, since it
+ deals with the composition of the constituents of living organisms.
+ Synthetic organic chemistry is already a well-organized science,
+ important by reason of the triumphs which it has already gained. The
+ other two branches of biological synthesis, morphogeny, the synthesis of
+ living forms and structures, and physiogeny, the synthesis of functions,
+ can hardly as yet be said to exist as sciences. They are, however, no
+ less legitimate and no less important than the sister science of
+ synthetic chemistry.</p>
+
+ <p>Although morphogeny and physiogeny do not exist as well-organized and
+ recognized sciences, there are already a number of works on the subject
+ by enthusiastic pioneers&mdash;independent seekers, who have not feared
+ to abandon the paths of official science to wander in new and hitherto
+ unexplored domains. <!-- Page 115 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page115"></a>{115}</span></p>
+
+ <p>The first experiment in physiogeny was the discovery of osmosis by the
+ Abbé Nollet in 1748. He filled a pig's bladder with alcohol, and plunged
+ it into water. He noticed that the bladder gradually increased in volume
+ and became distended, the water penetrating into the interior of the
+ bladder more quickly than the alcohol could escape. This was the first
+ recorded experiment in the physics of nutrition and growth.</p>
+
+ <p>In 1866, Moritz Traube of Breslau discovered the osmotic properties of
+ certain chemical precipitates. As I pointed out in the <i>Revue
+ Scientifique</i> of March 1906, Traube made the first artificial cell,
+ and studied the osmotic properties of membranes and their mode of
+ production. This remarkable research should have been the starting-point
+ of synthetic biology. The only result, however, was to give rise to
+ numberless objections, and it soon fell into complete oblivion. "There
+ are," says Traube, "a number of persons quite blind to all progress, who
+ in the presence of a new discovery think only of the objections which may
+ be brought against it." The works of Traube have been collected and
+ published by his son (<i>Gesammelte Abhandlungen von Moritz Traube</i>,
+ 1899).</p>
+
+ <p>In 1867 there appeared in England a paper by Dr. E. Montgomery, of St.
+ Thomas's Hospital, <i>On the Formation of so-called Cells in Animal
+ Bodies</i>. This paper, published by Churchill &amp; Sons, is a most
+ interesting contribution and one of great originality. The author says:
+ "There can be no compromise between the tenets of the cell theory and the
+ conclusions arrived at in this paper; the distinction is thorough. Either
+ the units of which an organism is composed owe their origin to some kind
+ or other of procreation, a mysterious act of that mysterious entity life,
+ by which, in addition to their material properties, they become endowed
+ with those peculiar metaphysical powers constituting vitality. Or, on the
+ other hand, the organic units, like the crystalline units of inorganic
+ bodies, form the organism by dint of similar inherent qualities, form in
+ fact a living being possessed of all its inherent properties, as soon as
+ certain chemical compounds are placed under certain physical conditions.
+ If the former opinion be <!-- Page 116 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page116"></a>{116}</span>true, then we must clearly understand that
+ there exists naturally a break in the sequence of evolution, a chasm
+ between the organic and the inorganic world never to be bridged over. If,
+ on the contrary, the latter view be correct, then it strongly argues for
+ a continuity of development, a gradual chemical elaboration, which
+ culminates in those high compounds which, under surrounding influences,
+ manifest those complex changes called vital.</p>
+
+ <p>"Surely it is not a matter of indifference or of mere words, if the
+ extreme aim of physiology avowedly be the detection of the different
+ functions dependent on the vital exertions of a variety of ultimate
+ organisms, and the discovery of the specific stimulants which naturally
+ incite these functions into play. Or, on the other hand, if it be
+ understood to consist rather in the careful investigation of the
+ succession of chemical differentiations and their accompanying physical
+ changes, which give rise to the formation of a variety of tissues that
+ are found to possess certain specific properties, to display certain
+ definite actions due to a further flow of chemical and physical
+ modifications."</p>
+
+ <p>In 1871 there appeared a memoir by the Dutch savant Harting entitled
+ <i>Recherche de Morphologie synthetique sur la production artificielle de
+ quelques formations calcaires organiques</i>. This memoir, says Professor
+ R. Dubois, had cost Harting more than thirty years of work. "Synthetic
+ morphology is yet only in its infancy, let us hope that in a time equal
+ to that which has already expired since the first artificial production
+ of urea, it will have made a progress equal to that of its older sister,
+ synthetic chemistry."</p>
+
+ <p>In the <i>Comptes Rendues</i> of 1882 is the following note by D.
+ Monnier and Karl Vogt:&mdash;</p>
+
+ <p>"1. Figured forms presenting all the characteristics of organic
+ growth, cells, porous canals, tubes with partition walls, and
+ heterogeneous granules, may be produced artificially in appropriate
+ liquids by the mutual action of two salts which form one or more
+ insoluble salts by double decomposition. One of the component salts
+ should be in solution, while the other salt must be introduced in the
+ solid form. <!-- Page 117 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page117"></a>{117}</span></p>
+
+ <p>"2. Such forms of organic elements, cells, tubes, etc., may be
+ produced either in an organic liquid or a semi-organic liquid such as
+ sucrate of lime, or in an absolutely inorganic liquid such as silicate of
+ soda. Thus there can no longer be any question of distinctive forms as
+ characterizing organic bodies in contradistinction to inorganic
+ bodies.</p>
+
+ <p>"3. The figured elements of these pseudo-organic forms depend on the
+ nature, the viscosity, and the concentration of the liquids in which they
+ are produced. Certain viscous liquids such as solutions of gum arabic or
+ chloride of zinc do not produce these forms.</p>
+
+ <p>"4. The form of these artificial pseudo-organic products is constant,
+ as constant as that of the crystalline forms of mineral salts. This form
+ is so characteristic that it may often serve for the recognition of a
+ minimal proportion of a substance in a mixture. The observation of these
+ forms is a means of analysis as sensitive as that of the spectrum. We
+ may, for example, differentiate in this way the alkaline bicarbonates
+ from the sesqui-carbonates or the carbonates.</p>
+
+ <p>"5. The form of these artificial pseudo-organic elements depends
+ principally on the nature of the acid radical of the solid salt. Thus the
+ sulphates and the phosphates generally produce tubes, while the
+ carbonates form cells.</p>
+
+ <p>"6. As a rule these pseudo-organic forms are engendered only by
+ substances which are found in the living organism. Thus sucrate of
+ calcium will engender organic forms, whereas sucrate of strontium or
+ barium does not do so. There are, however, some exceptions to this rule,
+ such as the sulphates of copper, cadmium, zinc, and nickel.</p>
+
+ <p>"7. These artificial pseudo-organic elements are surrounded by
+ veritable membranes, dializing membranes which allow only liquids to pass
+ through them. These artificial cells have heterogeneous cell-contents,
+ and produce in their interior granulations which are disposed in a
+ regular order. Thus they are both in constitution and in form absolutely
+ similar to the cellular elements which constitute living organisms.</p>
+
+ <p>"8. It is probable that the inorganic elements which are present in
+ the natural protoplasm may play an important part <!-- Page 118 --><span
+ class="pagenum"><a name="page118"></a>{118}</span>in determining the form
+ which is assumed by the figured elements of the organism."</p>
+
+ <p>In 1902, Professor Quinke of Heidelberg, who has consecrated his life
+ with such distinction to the physics of liquids, writes thus of the
+ organogenic power of liquids in a paper published in the <i>Annalen der
+ Physik</i> under the title "Unsichtbare Flüssigkeitschichten": "In 1837,
+ Gustav Rose obtained organic forms by precipitation from inorganic
+ solutions. By precipitating chloride of calcium with the carbonates of
+ ammonium and other alkaline carbonates, he obtained small spheres which
+ grew and were transformed into calcic rhombohedra. He also obtained a
+ flocculent precipitate which later became granular and showed under the
+ microscope forms like the starfish, and discs with undulated borders. At
+ Freiberg, in certain stalactites, Rose also discovered forms consisting
+ of six pyramidal cells around a spherical nucleus.</p>
+
+ <p>"In 1839, Link obtained spherical granulations by the precipitation of
+ calcic or plumbic solutions by potash, soda, or carbonic acid. These
+ spherical granulations united after a time to form crystals. Sulphate of
+ iron, ammoniated sulphate of zinc, sulphate of copper precipitated by
+ sulphuretted hydrogen, and saline solutions precipitated by ferrocyanide
+ of potash, all give granular precipitates or discs, of which the granular
+ origin is quite perceptible.</p>
+
+ <p>"Runge in 1855 was the first to describe the formation of periodic
+ chemical precipitates. He used blotting paper as the medium in which
+ various chemical substances met by diffusion. In this way he studied the
+ mutual reactions of solutions of ferrocyanide of potash, chloride of
+ iron, and the sulphates of copper, iron, manganese, and zinc. The
+ coloured precipitates appeared at different positions in the paper, and
+ disappeared periodically at greater or longer intervals. The designs
+ formed by these coloured precipitates change with the concentration of
+ the saline solutions, or on the addition of oxalic acid, salts of potash
+ or ammonia, and other substances. These designs are shown in a number of
+ beautiful illustrations which accompany the work. In this <!-- Page 119
+ --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page119"></a>{119}</span>case the
+ capillarity of the paper necessarily exerts a certain influence on the
+ formation of the figures, but in addition to this, Runge admits the
+ intervention of another force hitherto unknown, which he calls
+ 'Bildungstrieb,' the formative impulse, which he considers to be the
+ elementary vital force in the formation of plants and animals.</p>
+
+ <p>"In 1867, R. Böttger obtained arborescent forms and ramifications of
+ metallic vegetation by sowing fragments the size of a pea of crystals of
+ the iron chlorides, chloride of cobalt, sulphate of manganese, nitrate
+ and chloride of copper, etc., in an aqueous solution of silicate of
+ sodium of specific gravity 1.18. These forms are due, as I shall show
+ later on, to the surface tension of the oily precipitate; Böttger gives
+ no explanation of the phenomenon.</p>
+
+ <p>"To this force, viz. that of surface tension, is also due the cellular
+ forms obtained by Traube in 1866. These were obtained from gelatine and
+ tannin, from acetate of copper or lead, and from nitrate of mercury in an
+ aqueous solution of ferrocyanide of potassium. These cells and
+ precipitated membranes have also been studied by Reinke, F. Cohn, H. de
+ Vries, and myself, who all observed the regression of these membranes,
+ which although colloidal at the beginning of the reaction speedily become
+ friable. This entirely refutes the opinion of Traube as to the
+ constitution of the precipitated membranes. He supposed them to consist
+ of masses of solid substance, with smaller orifices which do not permit
+ the passage of the membranogenous substance, whilst the larger orifices
+ through which it can pass are soon closed by the precipitate, the
+ membrane itself thus growing by a process of intussusception.</p>
+
+ <p>"Later on Traube himself considered the precipitated membrane to be a
+ thin, solid gelatinous layer in which the water was mechanically
+ entangled.</p>
+
+ <p>"Tamman has also made a number of experiments with solutions of the
+ chlorides and sulphates of the heavy metals, and solutions of phosphates,
+ silicates, ferrocyanides, and other salts. He found that most of these
+ membranes were permeable to the membranogenous solution. According to
+ Tamman, all <!-- Page 120 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page120"></a>{120}</span>precipitated membranes are hydrated
+ substances, and some of them, like the ferrocyanide of copper and the
+ tannate of gelatine are, when first formed, entirely comparable to liquid
+ membranes in all their properties.</p>
+
+ <p>"Graham had already obtained colourless jellies by the interaction of
+ concentrated solutions of ferrocyanide of potassium and sulphate of
+ copper. Bütschli also has recently described the microscopic appearance
+ of precipitated membranes produced by ferrocyanide of potassium and
+ acetate or chloride of iron.</p>
+
+ <p>"Like Linke and Gustav Rose, Famintzin has obtained spheroidal
+ precipitates by the reciprocal action of concentrated solutions of
+ chloride of calcium and carbonate of potassium. These grow rapidly and
+ suddenly, with concentric layers showing a spherical or flattened
+ nucleus. He also obtained forms resembling sphero-crystals and starch
+ grains.</p>
+
+ <p>"Harting, Vogelsang, Hansen, Bütschli, and others have studied the
+ structures which are formed by the reciprocal action of chloride of
+ calcium and the alkaline carbonates. Vogelsang has found small calcareous
+ bodies in the amorphous and globular precipitate formed by chloride of
+ calcium and carbonate of ammonium. He describes spheres attached to one
+ another, vesicles, and muriform structures. The number of these spheroids
+ is increased by the addition of gelatine. Hansen has also studied
+ Harting's method for the formation of sphero-crystals by the action of
+ the alkaline carbonates and phosphates on the salts of calcium in
+ presence of albumen and gelatine. He considers that the latter retard the
+ crystallization and assist the formation of the sphero-crystals.</p>
+
+ <p>"I shall show later on that gelatine and albumen essentially modify
+ the precipitate and do not merely act as catalytic substances. The
+ researches of <span class="correction" title="Original reads 'Famitzin'."
+ >Famintzin</span>, repeated and extended by Bütschli, show that
+ sphero-crystals are produced by the reaction of chloride of calcium on
+ carbonate of potassium without the presence of gelatine or albumen.
+ Bütschli studied the spheroids of carbonate of lime by means of polarized
+ light, and found that the layers were alternately positively and
+ negatively polarized." <!-- Page 121 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page121"></a>{121}</span></p>
+
+ <p>Such is the history of morphogenesis as described in 1902 by the
+ authority most qualified for the task, Professor Quinke of
+ Heidelberg.</p>
+
+ <p>In 1904, Professor Moritz Benedikt of Vienna treated the whole
+ question in his book, <i>Crystallization and Morphogenesis</i>, of which
+ a French translation appeared in the Maloine Library. This book is full
+ of original and suggestive ideas; it describes the work of Harting, and
+ more especially that of Van Schroën, who considers that crystals like
+ living beings begin as a cell and grow by a process of intussusception.
+ Professor Benedikt has made a complete résumé of the question in an
+ article, "The Origins of the Forms of Life," which appeared in the
+ <i>Revue Scientifique</i> in 1905.</p>
+
+ <p>In 1904, Professor Dubois of Lyons presented a report to the Society
+ of Biology on his interesting experiments on mineral cytogenesis. The
+ same year he gave a discourse at the university of Lyons on "The Creation
+ of Living Beings," which has been published by A. Storck of Lyons.</p>
+
+ <p>One of the most active of the modern morphogenists is Professor
+ Herrera of Mexico, whose work is illustrated in the <i>Atlas de
+ Plasmogenie</i> by Dr. Jules Félix of Brussels, one of the most
+ enthusiastic disciples of the new science. There is a résumé of Herrera's
+ work in the <i>Memoirs of the Societé Alzate, Mexico</i>.</p>
+
+ <p>A bibliography of the works which have appeared on this subject may be
+ found in the book of Professor Rhumbler of Göttingen, <i>Aus dem
+ Lückengebiete zwischen Organischer und Anorganischer Materie</i>,
+ 1906.</p>
+
+ <p>In 1907, Dr. Luiz Razetti of Carracas published a magnificent study of
+ the subject under the title <i>Que es la vida</i>.</p>
+
+ <p>In 1907, Dr. Martin Kuckuck of St. Petersburg repeated and extended
+ the experiments of R. Dubois, and published his results under the title
+ <i>Archigonia, Generatio Spontanea</i>, Leipzig, Ambrosius Barth.</p>
+
+ <p>Butler Burke of Cambridge has also made a series of experiments with
+ radium and barium salts analogous to those of Dubois.</p>
+
+ <p>In 1909, Albert and Alexandre Mary of Beauvais published <!-- Page 122
+ --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page122"></a>{122}</span>an interesting
+ study of this question under the title <i>Études expérimentales sur la
+ génération primitive</i>, published by Jules Rousset.</p>
+
+ <p>I should mention also among the works of synthetic biology the
+ publications of Professor Otto Lehmann of Karlsruhe, and in particular
+ <i>Flüssige Krystalle und die Theorien des Lebens</i>, Leipzig, Ambrosius
+ Barth.</p>
+
+ <p>Professor Ulenhuth of Berlin has published his study on the osmotic
+ growth of iron in alkaline hypochlorites under the title
+ <i>Untersuchungen ueber Antiformin</i>, Berlin, Julius Springer.</p>
+
+ <p>Professor Gariel has made a series of researches on osmotic growth
+ which are published in Abraham's <i>Recueil d'expériences de
+ physique</i>.</p>
+
+ <p>A. Lecha Marzo of Valladolid published his researches on the growth of
+ aniline colours in the <i>Gaceta Medica Catalana</i>, 1909, under the
+ title <i>Otra nueva flora artificiale</i>.</p>
+
+ <p>Dr. Maurice d'Halluin of Lille has also published a volume on osmotic
+ growths under the title, <i>Stéphane Leduc a-t-il créé la vie?</i></p>
+
+ <p>The subjects of the numerous memoirs that I have myself published
+ during the last ten years upon the question are treated anew in the pages
+ of this volume, and a résumé of my researches on osmotic growth has
+ already appeared in the <i>Documents du Progrès</i>, Sept. 1909.</p>
+
+ <p>We have thus shown that synthetic morphogenesis has already attracted
+ the attention of a certain number of ardent investigators. Morphogeny has
+ now its methods and its results, and physiogeny is also developing side
+ by side with it, since function is but the result of form. The field of
+ research is opened, and workers alone are needed in order to reap an
+ abundant harvest.</p>
+
+ <p><br style="clear:both" /></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p><!-- Page 123 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page123"></a>{123}</span></p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XI</h3>
+
+<p class="cenhead">OSMOTIC GROWTH&mdash;A STUDY IN MORPHOGENESIS</p>
+
+ <p>The phenomenon of osmotic growth has doubtless presented itself to the
+ eyes of every chemist; but to discover a phenomenon it is not enough
+ merely to have it under our eyes. Before Newton many a mathematician had
+ seen a spectrum, if only in the rainbow; many an observer before Franklin
+ had watched the lightning. To discover a phenomenon is to understand it,
+ to give it its due interpretation, and to comprehend the importance of
+ the rôle which it plays in the scheme of nature.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Osmotic Membranes.</i>&mdash;Certain substances in concentrated
+ solution have the property of forming osmotic membranes when they come in
+ contact with other chemical solutions. When a soluble substance in
+ concentrated solution is immersed in a liquid which forms with it a
+ colloidal precipitate, its surface becomes encased in a thin layer of
+ precipitate which gradually forms an osmotic membrane round it.</p>
+
+ <p>An osmotic membrane is not a semi-permeable membrane, as sometimes
+ described, <i>i.e.</i> a membrane permeable to water but impermeable to
+ the solute. It is a membrane which opposes different resistances to the
+ passage of water and of the various substances in solution, being very
+ permeable to water, but much less so to the different solutes.</p>
+
+ <p>A soluble substance thus surrounded by an osmotic membrane represents
+ what Traube has called an artificial cell. In such a cell the dissolved
+ substances have a very high osmotic pressure, an expansive force like
+ that of steam in a boiler; the molecules of the solute exerting pressure
+ on the walls of the extensible cell, and distending it like the <!-- Page
+ 124 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page124"></a>{124}</span>gas in a
+ balloon. This pressure increases the volume of the cell, and in
+ consequence water rushes in through the permeable membrane and still
+ further distends the cell. Most beautiful osmotic cells may be produced
+ by dropping a fragment of fused calcium chloride into a saturated
+ solution of potassium carbonate or tribasic potassium phosphate, the
+ calcium chloride becoming surrounded by an osmotic membrane of calcium
+ carbonate or calcium phosphate. This mineral membrane is beautifully
+ transparent and perfectly extensible. It is astonishing to contemplate
+ the contrast between the hard crystalline forms of ordinary chalk and
+ these soft transparent elastic membranes which have the same chemical
+ constitution. These osmotic cells of carbonate of lime or phosphate of
+ lime consist of a transparent membrane enclosing liquid contents and a
+ solid nucleus of chloride of calcium. Their form is that of an ovoid or
+ flattened sphere, and they may attain a diameter of seven centimetres or
+ more.</p>
+
+ <p>More frequently the osmotic growth consists of a number of cells
+ instead of one large cell. The first cell gives birth to a second cell or
+ vesicle, and this to a third, and so on, so that we finally obtain an
+ association of microscopic cellular cavities, separated by osmotic
+ walls&mdash;a structure completely analogous to that which we meet with
+ in a living organism.</p>
+
+ <p>We may easily picture to ourselves the mechanism by which an osmotic
+ cell gives birth to such a colony of microscopic vesicles. The
+ membranogenous substance, the chloride of calcium, diffuses uniformly on
+ all sides from the solid nucleus, and forms an osmotic membrane where it
+ comes into contact with the solution. This spherical membrane is extended
+ by osmotic pressure, and grows gradually larger. Since the area of the
+ surface of a sphere increases as the square of its radius, when the cell
+ has grown to twice its original diameter, each square centimetre of the
+ membrane will receive by diffusion but a quarter as much of the
+ membranogenous substance. Hence, after a time, the membrane will not be
+ sufficiently nourished by the membranogenous substance, it will break
+ down, and an aperture will occur through which the interior liquid oozes
+ out, forming in its turn a new <!-- Page 125 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page125"></a>{125}</span>membranous covering for itself. This is
+ the explanation of the fact that all living organisms are formed by
+ colonies of microscopical elements, although we must not forget that
+ Nature often produces similar results in different ways.</p>
+
+ <div class="figright" style="width:24%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig35.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig35.jpg"
+ alt="Figs. 35 &amp; 36." title="Figs. 35 &amp; 36." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 35.</span> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;
+ &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 36.</span>
+
+ <p class="cenhead">Osmotic growths of ferrocyanide of copper.</p>
+ </div>
+
+ <p>Osmotic growths may be obtained from a great number of chemical
+ substances. The most easily grown are the soluble salts of calcium in
+ solutions of alkaline phosphates and carbonates, to which we have already
+ alluded. We may also reverse the phenomenon by growing phosphates and
+ carbonates in solutions of calcium salts, but in this case the osmotic
+ growths are not so beautiful.</p>
+
+ <p>The various silicates play an important part in the constitution of
+ shells and of the skeletons of marine animals. Most of the metallic
+ salts, and more especially the soluble salts of calcium, give rise to the
+ phenomenon of osmotic growth when sown in solutions of the alkaline
+ silicates. In this way, by using different silicates and varying the
+ proportions and the concentrations, we may obtain an immense variety of
+ osmotic growths.</p>
+
+ <p>A good solution to commence with is the following:&mdash;</p>
+
+<table class="nob" summary="Good solution to commence with." title="Good solution to commence with.">
+<tr><td class="spacsingle"> Silicate of potash, sp. gr. 1.3 (33° Beaumé) </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom;"> 60 gr.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="spacsingle"> Saturated solution of sodium carbonate </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom;"> 60 gr.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="spacsingle"> Saturated solution of dibasic sodium phosphate </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom;"> 30 gr.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="spacsingle"> Distilled water </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom;"> make up to 1 litre.</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p><!-- Page 126 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page126"></a>{126}</span></p>
+
+ <p>A fragment of fused calcium chloride dropped into this solution will
+ produce a rapid growth of slender osmotic forms which may attain a height
+ of 20 or 30 centimetres.</p>
+
+ <p>Small pellets may also be made of one part of sugar and two of copper
+ sulphate and sown in the following solution, which must be kept warm
+ until the growth is complete:&mdash;</p>
+
+<table class="nob" summary="Gelatine solution." title="Gelatine solution.">
+<tr><td class="spacsingle"> Ten per cent. solution of gelatine </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom;"> 10 to 20 c.c.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="spacsingle"> Saturated solution of potassium ferrocyanide </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom;"> 5 to 10 c.c.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="spacsingle"> Saturated solution of sodium chloride </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom;"> 5 to 10 c.c.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="spacsingle"> Warm water (32° to 40° C.) </td><td class="spacsingle" style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom;"> 100 c.c.</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+ <p>In this solution we can obtain osmotic growths which may attain to a
+ height of 40 centimetres or more, vegetable forms, roots, arborescent
+ twigs, leaves, and terminal organs. These growths are stable as soon as
+ the gelatine has cooled and set, and may be carried about without fear of
+ injury (Fig. 35).</p>
+
+ <p>Precipitated osmotic membranes are very widely distributed in nature.
+ Professor Ulenhuth has seen iron growths in alkaline sodium hypochlorite
+ (Javelle water), and Lecha-Marzo has demonstrated the osmotic growth of
+ the various <!-- Page 127 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page127"></a>{127}</span>stains used for microscopy, in the liquids
+ used for fixing preparations.</p>
+
+ <div class="figright" style="width:47%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig37.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig37.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 37." title="Fig. 37." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 37.</span>&mdash;Osmotic vermiform growth.
+
+ <p class="poem">(<i>a</i>) The sickle-shaped growth.</p>
+
+ <p class="poem">(<i>b</i>) The growth broken by the upward pressure of
+ the solution.</p>
+
+ <p class="poem">(<i>c</i>) The wound having cicatrized, the stem
+ continues to grow downwards. </p>
+ </div>
+
+ <p>We now know that the physical force which builds up these growths is
+ that of osmotic pressure, since the slightest consideration will show the
+ inadequacy of the usual explanation that the growth is due to mere
+ differences of density, or to amorphous precipitation around bubbles of
+ gas. These may indeed affect the phenomenon, but can in no way be
+ regarded as its cause.</p>
+
+ <p>One of our experiments throws considerable light on this question. In
+ a glass vessel we placed a concentrated solution of carbonate of
+ potassium, to which had been added 4 per cent. of a saturated solution of
+ tribasic potassium phosphate. Into this solution we dropped a fragment of
+ fused calcium chloride, and obtained a vermiform growth some 6
+ millimetres in diameter. This growth was curved, at first growing
+ upwards, then for a short distance horizontally, and finally downwards.
+ The upward pressure of the solution, which was heavier than the growth,
+ ultimately broke it at the top of the curve, as shown at <i>b</i>, Fig.
+ 37. The liquid contents of the growth began to ooze out through the
+ wound, but this after a time became cicatrized, and the stem continued to
+ grow obstinately downwards once more, in opposition to the hydrostatic
+ pressure. In consequence of this pressure the growth is sinuous, tacking
+ as it were from side to side like a boat against the wind. We give three
+ successive photographs of this growth, which attained a length of over 10
+ inches. We have frequently obtained these vermiform growths forming a
+ series of such loops, growing upwards and falling again many times in
+ succession.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Osmotic Growths in Air.</i>&mdash;Certain of these artificial cells
+ may be made to grow out of the solution into the air. For this purpose we
+ place a fragment of CaCl<sub>2</sub> in a shallow flat-bottomed glass
+ dish, just covering the fragment with liquid. The best solution is as
+ follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<table class="nob" summary="Solution for growth into air." title="Solution for growth into air.">
+<tr><td class="spacsingle"> Potassium carbonate, saturated solution </td><td class="spacsingle"> 76 parts.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="spacsingle"> Sodium sulphate, saturated solution </td><td class="spacsingle"> 20 &nbsp; &nbsp;,,</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="spacsingle"> Tribasic potassium phosphate, saturated solution </td><td class="spacsingle"> &nbsp; 4 &nbsp; &nbsp;,,</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p><!-- Page 128 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page128"></a>{128}</span></p>
+
+ <p>The calcium chloride surrounds itself with an osmotic membrane; water
+ penetrates into the interior of the cell thus formed, and a beautiful
+ transparent spherical cell is the result, the summit of which soon
+ emerges from the shallow liquid. The cell continues to increase by
+ absorption of the liquid at its base, and may grow up out of the liquid
+ into the air for as much as one or two centimetres.</p>
+
+ <p>This is a most impressive spectacle, an osmotic production, half
+ aquatic and half aerial, absorbing water and salts by its base, and
+ losing water and volatile products by evaporation from its summit, while
+ at the same time it absorbs and dissolves the gases of the
+ atmosphere.</p>
+
+ <p>The aerial portion of an osmotic growth will sometimes become
+ specialized in form. The summit of the growth develops a sort of crown or
+ cup surrounded by a circular wall. This cup contains liquid, and
+ continues to grow up into the air like the stem of a plant, carrying with
+ it the liquid which has been absorbed by the base of the growth.</p>
+
+ <p>The preceding experiments give us an explanation of the curious
+ phenomena exhibited by so-called creeping salts. A saline solution left
+ at the bottom of a vessel will sometimes be found after some months to
+ have crept up to the top of the vessel. Cellular partitions formed in
+ this way will be found extending from the bottom to the top of the
+ vessel, and not only so, but the whole of the remaining liquid will be
+ imprisoned in the upper cells.</p>
+
+ <div class="figleft" style="width:37%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig38.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig38.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 38." title="Fig. 38." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 38.</span>&mdash;Osmotic growth produced by
+ sowing a mixture of CaCl<sub>2</sub> and MnCl<sub>2</sub> in a solution
+ of alkaline carbonate, phosphate, and silicate. The stem and terminal
+ organs are of different colours. (One-third of the natural size.)
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="figright" style="width:40%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig39.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig39.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 39." title="Fig. 39." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 39.</span>&mdash;An osmotic growth photographed
+ by transverse light to show the construction of the terminal organs.
+ </div>
+
+<div style="clear: right"></div>
+ <p><i>Assimilation and Excretion.</i>&mdash;Like a living being, an
+ osmotic growth absorbs nutriment from the medium in which it grows, and
+ this nutriment it assimilates and organizes. If we compare the weight of
+ an osmotic growth with that of the mineral fragment which produced it, we
+ shall find that the mineral seed has increased many hundred times in
+ weight. Similarly, if we weigh the liquid before and after the
+ experiment, we shall find that it has lost an equivalent weight. The
+ absorbed substance of an osmotic production must also undergo chemical
+ transformation before it can be assimilated&mdash;that is, before it can
+ form part of the growth. Calcium chloride, for example, growing in a
+ solution of potassium <!-- Page 130 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page130"></a>{130}</span>carbonate, is transformed into calcium
+ carbonate. CaCl<sub>2</sub> + K<sub>2</sub>CO<sub>3</sub> =
+ CaCO<sub>3</sub> + 2KCl. Thus an osmotic growth can make a choice between
+ the substances offered to it, rejecting the potassium of the nutrient
+ liquid, and absorbing water and the radical CO<sub>3</sub>, while at the
+ same time it eliminates and excretes <!-- Page 131 --><span
+ class="pagenum"><a name="page131"></a>{131}</span>chlorine, which may be
+ found in the nutrient liquid after the reaction.</p>
+
+ <p>Of all the ordinary physical forces, osmotic pressure and osmosis
+ alone appear to possess this remarkable power of organization and
+ morphogenesis. It is a matter of surprise that this peculiar faculty has
+ hitherto remained almost unsuspected.</p>
+
+ <div class="figright" style="width:27%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig40.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig40.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 40." title="Fig. 40." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 40.</span>&mdash;Osmotic growth in a solution of
+ KNO<sub>3</sub>, showing spine-like organs.
+ </div>
+
+ <p><i>Osmotic Growths.</i>&mdash;If we sow fragments of calcium chloride
+ in solutions of the alkaline carbonates, phosphates, or silicates, we
+ obtain a wonderful variety of filiform and linear growths which may
+ attain to a height of 30 or 40 centimetres. Some are so flexible that the
+ stems bend, falling in curves around the centre of growth, like leaves of
+ grass. If we dilute this same liquid, as it becomes less concentrated the
+ growths are more curved, ramified, dendritic, like those of trees or
+ corals.</p>
+
+ <div class="figleft" style="width:25%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig41.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig41.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 41." title="Fig. 41." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 41.</span>&mdash;Terminal organs like catkins,
+ developing in a solution of ammonium chloride.
+ </div>
+
+ <p>In the culture of osmotic growths we may also by appropriate means
+ produce terminal organs resembling flowers and seed-capsules. To do this
+ we wait till the growth is considerably advanced, and then add a large
+ quantity of liquid to the nutrient solution so as to diminish the
+ concentration a hundredfold or more. Spherical <!-- Page 132 --><span
+ class="pagenum"><a name="page132"></a>{132}</span>terminal organs will
+ then grow out from the ends of the stems, which may during their further
+ growth become conical or piriform in shape.</p>
+
+ <p>By superposing layers of liquid of different concentration and
+ decreasing density, one may obtain knots and swellings in the osmotic
+ growths marking the surfaces of separation of the liquid. When a young
+ growth in the vigour of its youth reaches the surface of the water, it
+ spreads out horizontally over the surface of the liquid in thin leaves or
+ foliaceous expansions of different forms.</p>
+
+ <div class="figright" style="width:48%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig42.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig42.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 42." title="Fig. 42." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 42.</span>&mdash;An osmotic madrepore.
+ </div>
+
+ <p>The preponderating influence in morphogenesis is osmotic pressure, the
+ osmotic forms varying with its intensity, distribution, and mode of
+ application. Whatever the chemical composition of the liquid, similar
+ osmotic forces, modified in the same manner, give rise to forms which
+ have a family resemblance. The chemical nature of the liquid, however, is
+ not entirely without influence on the form. Thus the presence of a
+ nitrate in the mother liquor tends to produce points or thorns. Ammonium
+ chloride in a potassium ferrocyanide solution produces growths shaped
+ like catkins, and the alkaline chlorides tend to produce vermiform
+ growths. <!-- Page 133 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page133"></a>{133}</span></p>
+
+ <p>Coralline growths may also be obtained by using appropriate chemical
+ solutions. For this purpose the solution of silicate, carbonate, and
+ dibasic phosphate should be diluted to half strength, with the addition
+ of 2 to 4 per cent. of a concentrated solution of sodium sulphate or
+ potassium nitrate.</p>
+
+ <div class="figleft" style="width:45%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig43.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig43.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 43." title="Fig. 43." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 43.</span>&mdash;An osmotic mushroom form.
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="figright" style="width:43%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig44.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig44.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 44." title="Fig. 44." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 44.</span>&mdash;Osmotic fungi.
+ </div>
+
+<div style="clear: right"></div>
+ <p>Coral-like forms may also be grown from a semi-saturated solution of
+ silicate, carbonate, and dibasic phosphate, to which has been added 4 per
+ cent. of a concentrated solution of sodium sulphate or potassium nitrate.
+ In this we may obtain beautiful growths like madrepores or corals, formed
+ by a central nucleus from which radiate large leaves like the petals of a
+ flower. The presence of nitrate of potassium produces pointed leaves with
+ thorn-like processes recalling the forms of the aloe and the agave.</p>
+
+ <p>Most remarkable fungus-like forms may be obtained by commencing the
+ growth in a concentrated solution, and then <!-- Page 134 --><span
+ class="pagenum"><a name="page134"></a>{134}</span>carefully pouring a
+ layer of distilled water over the surface of the liquid. The resemblance
+ is so perfect that some of our productions have been taken for fungi even
+ by experts. The <!-- Page 135 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page135"></a>{135}</span>stem of these osmotic fungi is formed of
+ bundles of fine hollow fibres, while the upper surface of the cap is
+ sometimes smooth, and sometimes covered with small scales. The lower
+ surface of the cap shows traces of radiating lamellæ, which are sometimes
+ intersected by concentric layers parallel to the outer <!-- Page 136
+ --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page136"></a>{136}</span>surface of the
+ cap. In this case the lower surface of the cap shows a number of orifices
+ or canals similar to those seen in many varieties of fungus.</p>
+
+ <div class="figcenter" style="width:57%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig45.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig45.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 45." title="Fig. 45." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 45.</span>&mdash;A shell-like calcareous osmotic
+ growth.
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="figleft" style="width:47%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig46.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig46.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 46." title="Fig. 46." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 46.</span>&mdash;Osmotic growths in the form of
+ shells.
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="figright" style="width:47%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig47.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig47.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 47." title="Fig. 47." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 47.</span>&mdash;Capsular osmotic growth. The
+ capsule has been broken to show the interior structure.
+ </div>
+
+ <p>Shell-like osmotic productions may be grown by sowing the mineral in a
+ very shallow layer of concentrated solution, a centimetre or less in
+ depth, and pouring over this a less concentrated layer of solution. By
+ varying the solution or concentration we may thus grow an infinite
+ variety of shell forms. <!-- Page 137 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page137"></a>{137}</span></p>
+
+ <p>Capsules or closed shells may be produced in the same way by
+ superimposing a layer of somewhat greater concentration. These capsules
+ consist of two valves joined together at their circumference. The lower
+ valve is thick and strong, while the upper valve may be transparent,
+ translucent, or opaque, but is always thinner and more fragile than the
+ lower one.</p>
+
+ <p>Ferrous sulphate sown in a silicate solution gives rise to growths
+ which are green in colour, climbing, or herbaceous, twining in spirals
+ round the larger and more solid calcareous growths.</p>
+
+ <div class="figcenter" style="width:47%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig48.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig48.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 48." title="Fig. 48." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 48.</span>&mdash;An osmotic growth in which the
+ terminal organs are differently coloured from the stems, showing that
+ the chemical evolution is different.
+ </div>
+
+ <p>With salts of manganese, the chloride, citrate or sulphate, the stages
+ of evolution of the growth are distinguished not only by diversities of
+ form, but also by modifications of colour. We may thus obtain terminal
+ organs black or golden yellow in colour on a white stalk. In a similar
+ way we may obtain fungi with a white stalk and a yellow cap, of which the
+ lower surface is black.</p>
+
+ <div class="figright" style="width:28%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig49.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig49.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 49." title="Fig. 49." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 49.</span>&mdash;Osmotic capsular growth with
+ figured belt.
+ </div>
+
+ <p>Very beautiful growths may be obtained by sowing calcium chloride in a
+ solution of potassium carbonate, with the addition of 2 per cent. of a
+ saturated solution of tribasic potassium phosphate. This will give
+ capsules with figured belts, vertical lines at regular intervals, or
+ transverse stripes composed of projecting dots such as may be seen in
+ many sea-urchins. These capsules are closed at the summit by a cap,
+ forming an operculum, so that they sometimes appear as if formed of two
+ valves. Now and again we may see the upper valve raised by <!-- Page 138
+ --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page138"></a>{138}</span>the internal
+ osmotic pressure, showing the gelatinous contents through the
+ opening.</p>
+
+ <div class="figleft" style="width:35%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig50.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig50.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 50." title="Fig. 50." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 50.</span>&mdash;Am&oelig;boid osmotic growth,
+ floating free in the mother liquor.
+ </div>
+
+ <p>The calcareous capsules grown in a saturated solution of potassium
+ carbonate or phosphate often take a regular ovoid form. If these are
+ allowed to thicken, they may be taken out of the water without breaking,
+ and then present the aspect of veritable ooliths.</p>
+
+ <div class="figleft" style="width:30%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig51.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig51.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 51." title="Fig. 51." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 51.</span>&mdash;Transparent osmotic cell, in
+ which may be seen the white calcareous nucleus. The summit of the cell
+ bears osmotic prolongations.
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="figright" style="width:44%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig52.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig52.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 52." title="Fig. 52." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 52.</span>&mdash;Am&oelig;boid osmotic growth
+ with long crystalline cilia swimming about in the mother liquor.
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="figright" style="width:46%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig53.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig53.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 53." title="Fig. 53." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 53.</span>&mdash;Osmotic growth swimming in
+ mother liquor. The fin-like prolongation grew out between two liquid
+ layers of different concentrations.
+ </div>
+
+ <p>Osmotic productions may be divided into two groups. Some like the
+ silicate growths are fixed. Like vegetables, they develop, become
+ organized, grow, decline, die, and are disintegrated at the spot where
+ they are sown. Others, especially those which are grown in alkaline
+ carbonates and phosphates, have two periods of evolution, the first a
+ fixed period, and the second a wandering <!-- Page 139 --><span
+ class="pagenum"><a name="page139"></a>{139}</span>one. During the first
+ period their specific gravity is greater than that of the surrounding
+ medium, and they rest immobile at the bottom of the vessel in which they
+ are sown. As they grow, they absorb water and their specific gravity
+ diminishes. Little by little they rise up in the liquid, and finally
+ acquire a considerable amount of mobility, being readily displaced by
+ every current. Hence it is very difficult to photograph these <!-- Page
+ 140 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page140"></a>{140}</span>mobile
+ osmotic growths, which swim about in the mother liquor and are often
+ provided with prolongations in the forms of cilia, and sometimes with
+ fins, which undulate as they move. Some of these ciliary hairs are
+ evidently osmotic in their origin, being localized as a tuft at the
+ summit of the growth. Others are apparently crystalline in structure, and
+ are spread over the whole surface of the swimming vesicle. An osmotic
+ growth increases by the absorption of water from a concentrated solution.
+ When the solution is originally saturated it thus becomes supersaturated,
+ and deposits these long ciliary crystals on the surface of the
+ growth.</p>
+
+ <p>When a capsule splits in two under the influence of the internal
+ osmotic pressure, it may happen that the operculum or upper valve floats
+ away in the liquid. We thus obtain a free swimming organism, a
+ transparent bell-like form with an undulating fringe, like a Medusa.</p>
+
+ <div class="figleft" style="width:29%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig54.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig54.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 54." title="Fig. 54." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 54.</span>&mdash;Capsular osmotic growth, the two
+ valves separated showing the colloidal contents.
+ </div>
+
+ <p>Frequently a single seed or stock will give rise to a whole series of
+ osmotic growths. A vesicle is first produced, and then a contraction
+ appears around the vesicle, and this contraction increases till a portion
+ of the vesicle is cut off and swims away free like an am&oelig;ba. The
+ same phenomenon may be observed with vermiform growths, a single seed
+ often giving <!-- Page 141 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page141"></a>{141}</span>rise in this way to a whole series of
+ am&oelig;biform or vermiform productions.</p>
+
+ <p>It must be remembered that in an osmotic growth the active growing
+ portion is the gelatinous contents in the interior, the external visible
+ growth being only a skeleton or shell. We may sometimes succeed in
+ hooking up one of these long vermiform growths, breaking the calcareous
+ sheath, and drawing out a long undulating translucid gelatinous cylinder.
+ The outline of this cylinder is so well defined as to make us doubt
+ whether the fine colloidal membrane which separates it clearly from the
+ liquid can have been formed so rapidly, or if it may not perhaps exist
+ already formed in the interior of its calcareous sheath.</p>
+
+ <div class="figright" style="width:25%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig55.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig55.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 55." title="Fig. 55." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 55.</span>&mdash;Microphotograph showing the
+ structure of various osmotic stems. (Magnified 25 diameters.)
+
+ <p class="poem">(<i>a</i>) Sodium sulphite.</p>
+
+ <p class="poem">(<i>b</i>) Potassium bichromate.</p>
+
+ <p class="poem">(<i>c</i>) Sodium sulphide.</p>
+
+ <p class="poem">(<i>d</i>) Sodium bisulphite. </p>
+ </div>
+
+ <p>When a large capsular shell such as we have described bursts, it
+ expels a part or the whole of its contents as a gelatinous mass which
+ retains the form of the cavity. <span class="correction" title="Original reads 'Simiarly'."
+ >Similarly</span>, if we suddenly dilute the mother liquor around an
+ osmotic cell, it bursts by a process of dehiscence, and projects into the
+ liquid a part of its contents, which may thus become an independent
+ vesicle. In this way a single osmotic cell may produce a whole series of
+ independent vesicles.</p>
+
+ <p>It is even possible to rejuvenate an osmotic growth that has become
+ degenerate through age. An osmotic production grows old and dies when it
+ has expended the osmotic force contained in the interior of its capsule.
+ A calcium osmotic growth which has thus become exhausted may be
+ rejuvenated by transferring it to a concentrated solution of calcium
+ chloride. It will absorb this, and thus be enabled to renew its evolution
+ and growth when put back again into the original mother liquor. <!-- Page
+ 142 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page142"></a>{142}</span></p>
+
+ <p>The structure of osmotic growths is no less varied than their form.
+ Their stems are formed of cells or vesicles juxtaposed, showing cavities
+ separated by osmotic walls. Sometimes the component vesicles have kept
+ their original form, so that the stem has the appearance of a row of
+ beads. Or the cells may be more or less flattened, the divisions being
+ widely separated. Or again, by the absorption of the divisions, a tube
+ may be formed, a veritable vessel or canal in which liquids can
+ circulate. <!-- Page 143 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page143"></a>{143}</span></p>
+
+ <div class="figcenter" style="width:48%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig56.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig56.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 56." title="Fig. 56." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 56.</span>&mdash;Microphotograph showing the
+ structure of osmotic stems. (Magnified 40 diameters.)
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="figright" style="width:33%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig57.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig57.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 57." title="Fig. 57." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 57.</span>&mdash;Photograph of an osmotic leaf
+ showing the veins.
+ </div>
+
+ <p>The foliaceous expansions, or osmotic leaves, also present great
+ varieties both of appearance and of structure. The veins may be
+ longitudinal, fan-shaped, or penniform. We have occasionally met with
+ leaves having a lined or ruled surface, giving most beautiful diffraction
+ colours. The usual structure, however, is vesicular or cellular, as in
+ Fig. 58. In photographs we often get the appearance of lacunæ, but all
+ these lacunæ are closed cavities, the appearance being due to the
+ transparency of the cell walls.</p>
+
+ <div class="figleft" style="width:30%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig58.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig58.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 58." title="Fig. 58." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 58.</span>&mdash;Photomicrograph of an osmotic
+ leaf showing the cellular structure.
+ </div>
+
+ <p>In conclusion we may say that osmotic growths are formed of an
+ ensemble of closed cavities of various forms, containing liquids and
+ separated by osmotic membranes, constituting veritable tissues. This
+ structure offers the closest <!-- Page 144 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page144"></a>{144}</span>resemblance to that of living organisms.
+ Is it possible to doubt that the simple conditions which produce an
+ osmotic growth have frequently been realized during the past ages of the
+ earth? What part has osmotic growth played in the evolution of living
+ forms, and what traces of its action may we hope to find to-day? Osmotic
+ growth gives us fibrous silicates, phosphatic nodules, corals, and
+ madrepores; it also gives us formations which remind one of the "atolls,"
+ calcareous growths rising like a crown out of the water. The geologist
+ may well consider what rôle osmotic growth may have played in the
+ formation of the various rocks, siliceous, calcareous, barytic,
+ magnesian, the fibrous and nodular rocks and atolls. The palæontologist
+ relies on the different forms found in his rocks to classify his
+ specimens; from the existence of a shell, he concludes the presence of
+ life. Since, however, forms which are apparently organic may be merely
+ the product of osmotic growth, it is evident that he must reconsider his
+ conclusions. The same may be said of the various forms of coral or of
+ fungoid growths. In the <!-- Page 146 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page146"></a>{146}</span>presence of a calcified or silicated
+ fungus we can no longer argue with certainty as to the existence of life,
+ without taking into consideration the possibility that the specimen in
+ question may be an osmotic production.</p>
+
+ <div class="figleft" style="width:37%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig59.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig59.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 59." title="Fig. 59." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 59.</span>&mdash;Osmotic growth with nucleated
+ terminal organs. (One-third of the natural size.)
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="figright" style="width:46%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig60.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig60.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 60." title="Fig. 60." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 60.</span>&mdash;A group of osmotic plants.
+ </div>
+
+<div style="clear: right"></div>
+ <p>Whatever our opinion as to its signification, osmotic growth demands
+ the attention of every mind devoted to the study of nature. It is a
+ marvellous spectacle to see a formless fragment of calcium salt grow into
+ a shell, a madrepore, or a fungus, and this as the result of a simple
+ physical force. Why should the study of osmotic growth attract less
+ attention than the formation of crystals, on which so much time and
+ labour has been bestowed in the past?</p>
+
+ <p><br style="clear:both" /></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p><!-- Page 147 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page147"></a>{147}</span></p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XII</h3>
+
+<p class="cenhead">THE PHENOMENA OF LIFE AND OSMOTIC PRODUCTIONS&mdash;A
+STUDY IN PHYSIOGENESIS</p>
+
+ <p>It is impossible to define life, not only because it is complex, but
+ because it varies in different living beings. The phenomena which
+ constitute the life of a man are far other than those which make up the
+ life of a polyp or a plant; and in the more simple forms life is so
+ greatly reduced that it is often a matter of difficulty to decide whether
+ a given form belongs to the animal, vegetable, or mineral kingdom.
+ Considering the impossibility of defining the exact line of demarcation
+ between animate and inanimate matter, it is astonishing to find so much
+ stress laid on the supposed fundamental difference between vital and
+ non-vital phenomena. There is in fact no sharp division, no precise limit
+ where inanimate nature ends and life begins; the transition is gradual
+ and insensible, for just as a living organism is made of the same
+ substances as the mineral world, so life is a composite of the same
+ physical and chemical phenomena that we find in the rest of nature. All
+ the supposed attributes of life are found also outside living organisms.
+ Life is constituted by the association of physico-chemical phenomena,
+ their harmonious grouping and succession. Harmony is a condition of
+ life.</p>
+
+ <p>We are quite unable to separate living beings from the other
+ productions of nature by their composition, since they are formed of the
+ same mineral elements. All the aliments of plants&mdash;water, carbon,
+ nitrogen, phosphorus, sulphur&mdash;before their absorption and
+ assimilation belonged to the mineral kingdom. The carbon and the water
+ are transformed into <!-- Page 148 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page148"></a>{148}</span>sugar and fat, the nitrogen and the
+ sulphur into albumen, and the compounds so formed are then said to belong
+ to the organic world. These organic bodies are returned once again to the
+ mineral world by the action of animals and microbes, which transform the
+ carbon into carbonates, and the nitrogen, sulphur, and phosphorus into
+ nitrates, sulphates, and phosphates. Hence life is but a phase in the
+ animation of mineral matter; all matter may be said to have within itself
+ the essence of life, potential in the mineral, actual in the animal and
+ the vegetable. The flux and reflux of matter is alternate and incessant,
+ from the mineral world to the living, and back again from the living to
+ the mineral world.</p>
+
+ <p>At the same time there is a continuous flux of energy. Organic matter
+ contains potential energy, the energy of chemical combination; and during
+ its passage through the living being it is gradually stripped of this
+ energy and returned to the mineral world. The first step in synthetic
+ biology is the addition of potential energy to matter, the reduction of
+ an oxide, the separation of a salt into its radicals, the production of
+ some endothermic chemical combination. The energy stored up by such
+ processes can be again liberated as heat, that fire which the ancients
+ with wonderful prescience long ago recognized as the symbol of life.</p>
+
+ <p>Attempts have been made to differentiate a living being by the nature
+ of its chemical combinations, the so-called organic compounds. It was
+ supposed that life alone could realize these and cause the production of
+ the various substances which form the structure of living beings. Of late
+ years, however, a large number of these organic substances have been
+ artificially produced in the laboratory, and the synthetic problems which
+ remain are of the same order as those which have been already solved.</p>
+
+ <p>As one learns to know the mineral kingdom and the living world more
+ intimately the differences between them disappear. Thus a living being
+ was supposed to be characterized by its sensibility, <i>i.e.</i> its
+ faculty of reaction against external impressions. But this reaction is a
+ general phenomenon of nature; there is no action without reaction.
+ Neither can the <!-- Page 149 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page149"></a>{149}</span>reaction to internal impressions,
+ immediate or deferred, be considered as the characteristic of life, since
+ osmotic growths exhibit a most exquisite sensibility in this direction.
+ Since, then, the faculty of reaction is a general property of matter, the
+ characteristics of life in the lower organisms are only three in number,
+ viz. nutrition, growth, and reproduction by fission or budding. But
+ crystals are also nourished and grow in the water of crystallization.
+ They have moreover a specific form, and every biologist who wishes to
+ establish a parallel between the phenomena of the living and the mineral
+ world is wont to compare living beings with crystals. Crystals, it is
+ said, affect regular geometric forms, salient angles, and rectilinear
+ edges, while living beings have rounded forms without any geometric
+ regularity. Another supposed distinction is that living beings are
+ nourished by intussusception, whereas crystals increase by apposition.
+ Again, living beings are said to assimilate and transform the aliment
+ they absorb, whereas crystals do not transform the matter which is added
+ externally to their structure. Another supposed difference is that living
+ things eliminate and discharge their products of combustion, while the
+ evolution of a crystal is accompanied by no such elimination. Finally,
+ the phenomenon of reproduction is said to be the exclusive characteristic
+ of a living being; but crystals may also be reproduced and multiplied by
+ the introduction of fragments of crystalline matter into a supersaturated
+ solution.</p>
+
+ <p>The resemblance between an osmotic growth and a living organism is
+ much closer than that between a living being and a crystal, there being
+ not only an analogy of form, but also of structure and of function. In
+ order to find the physical parallel to life, we must turn to osmosis and
+ osmotic growth rather than to crystals and crystallization.</p>
+
+ <p>The first and most striking analogy between living beings and osmotic
+ growths is that of form. The morphogenic power of osmosis gives rise to
+ an infinite variety of forms. An osmotic growth, even at the first sight,
+ suggests the idea of a living thing. One need only glance at the
+ photographs of osmotic productions to recognize the forms of madrepore,
+ fungus, alga, and shell. It is wonderful that a force capable <!-- Page
+ 150 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page150"></a>{150}</span>of such
+ marvellous results should have hitherto been almost entirely
+ neglected.</p>
+
+ <p>A second analogy between vital and osmotic growths is to be found in
+ their structure, both being formed by groups of cells or vesicles
+ separated by osmotic membranes. An osmotic stem, formed by a row of
+ cellular cavities separated by osmotic membranes, has a great structural
+ resemblance to the knotted stems of bamboos, reeds, and the like. The
+ foliaceous expansions of osmotic growths are formed by colonies of cells
+ or vesicles disposed in regular lines, which may present various patterns
+ of innervation, parallel, palmate, or pennate. Many of the lamellar
+ osmotic growths are striped in parallel lines alternately opaque and
+ transparent. The terminal organs have also their enveloping membranes,
+ their pulp and nucleus, just like vegetable forms.</p>
+
+ <p>The analogies of function are no less remarkable than those of form
+ and structure. Nutrition is perhaps the most elementary and essential
+ vital phenomenon, since without nutrition life cannot exist. Nutrition
+ consists in the absorption of alimentary substances from the surrounding
+ medium, the chemical transformation of such substances, their fixation by
+ intussusception in every part of the organism, and the ejection of the
+ products of combustion into the surrounding medium. Osmotic growths
+ absorb material from the medium in which they grow, submit it to chemical
+ metamorphosis, and eject the waste products of the reaction into the
+ surrounding medium. An osmotic growth moreover exercises choice in the
+ selection of the substances which are offered for its consumption,
+ absorbing some greedily and entirely rejecting others. Thus osmotic
+ growths present all the phenomena of nutrition, the fundamental
+ characteristic of life.</p>
+
+ <p>In the living organism nutrition results in growth, development, and
+ evolution. Growth and development also follow the absorption and fixation
+ of aliment by an osmotic production. An osmotic production grows, its
+ form develops and becomes more complicated, and its weight increases. An
+ osmotic growth may weigh many hundred times as much as the mineral sown
+ in the solution, the mother liquor losing a <!-- Page 151 --><span
+ class="pagenum"><a name="page151"></a>{151}</span>corresponding weight.
+ Thus growth, which has hitherto been considered an essential phenomenon
+ of life, is also a phenomenon common to all osmotic productions.</p>
+
+ <p>Osmotic growths like living things may be said to have an evolutionary
+ existence, the analogy holding good down to the smallest detail. In their
+ early youth, at the beginning of life, the phenomena of exchange, of
+ growth, and of organization are very intense. As they grow older, these
+ exchanges gradually slow down, and growth is arrested. With age the
+ exchanges still continue, but more slowly, and these then gradually fail
+ and are finally completely arrested. The osmotic growth is dead, and
+ little by little it decays, losing its structure and its form.</p>
+
+ <p>The membranes of an osmotic growth thicken with age, and thus oppose
+ to the osmotic exchanges a steadily increasing resistance. Young osmotic
+ cells appear swollen and turgescent, whereas old ones become flaccid,
+ relaxed, and wrinkled. Analogous phenomena are met with in living
+ organisms, the calcareous infiltration of the vessels representing the
+ thickening and hardening of the osmotic membranes. The plumpness of a
+ child and the turgescence of young cells are but the expression of high
+ osmotic tension, while relaxation and flaccidity of the tissues in old
+ age betrays the fall of osmotic pressure in the intracellular
+ tissues.</p>
+
+ <p>Circulation of the nutrient fluid may also be observed in an osmotic
+ growth as in a living organism. If we take a calcareous growth with long
+ ramified stems and dilute the mother liquor considerably, we may see
+ currents of liquid issuing from the summit of the growth&mdash;currents
+ which are made visible by the cloudy precipitates which they cause. The
+ same current is also rendered visible in the stems themselves by the
+ motion of the granulations and gas bubbles in the interior of the osmotic
+ cells. It is plain that some such circulation must exist, for how could a
+ membrane be formed 30 centimetres from the seed if the membranogenous
+ substance did not circulate through the stem? A moment's consideration
+ will show that the propulsion is due to osmotic pressure and not to mere
+ differences of density, for the liquid <!-- Page 152 --><span
+ class="pagenum"><a name="page152"></a>{152}</span>which rises in the stem
+ is a concentrated solution of calcium salt much denser than the mother
+ liquor, and the current of liquid after rising in the stem may be seen to
+ fall back again through the liquid.</p>
+
+ <div class="figright" style="width:47%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig61.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig61.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 61." title="Fig. 61." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 61.</span>&mdash;A group of osmotic forms.
+ </div>
+
+ <p>Organization has long been considered as one of the principal
+ characteristics of life, <i>i.e.</i> the arrangement of matter so as to
+ produce an animated and evolutionary form accompanied by transformation
+ of energy. But osmotic growths are also organizations endowed with the
+ same faculties, and the physical mechanism which is at the basis of their
+ formation is the same as that which determines the organization of living
+ matter.</p>
+
+ <p>The phenomena of osmotic growth show how ordinary mineral matter,
+ carbonates, phosphates, silicates, nitrates, and chlorides, may imitate
+ the forms of animated nature without <!-- Page 153 --><span
+ class="pagenum"><a name="page153"></a>{153}</span>the intervention of any
+ living organism. Ordinary physical forces are quite sufficient to produce
+ forms like those of living beings, closed cavities containing liquids
+ separated by osmotic membranes, with tissues similar to those of the
+ vital organs in form, colour, evolution, and function.</p>
+
+ <p>It is only necessary to glance at the photographs of these osmotic
+ growths to appreciate the wonderful variety of form. The variety of
+ function is not less evident, and in many instances, especially with
+ manganese salts, the difference of function of various regions is marked
+ by differences of colour. When a large osmotic cell projects beyond the
+ mother liquor and grows up into the air, it is evident that the function
+ of liquid absorption must be localized in the submerged part. In other
+ cases we have a local evolution of gas, which may be demonstrated by
+ growing a fragment of calcium chloride in a mother liquor composed of the
+ following saturated solutions:&mdash;</p>
+
+<table class="nob" summary="Solution for evolution of gas." title="Solution for evolution of gas.">
+<tr><td class="spacsingle"> Potassium carbonate </td><td class="spacsingle"> 76 parts.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="spacsingle"> Potassium sulphate </td><td class="spacsingle"> 16 &nbsp; &nbsp;,,</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="spacsingle"> Tribasic potassium phosphate </td><td class="spacsingle"> 46 &nbsp; &nbsp;,,</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+ <p>During the whole period of growth there is an abundant liberation of
+ bubbles of gas, which is <span class="correction" title="Original reads 'acurately'."
+ >accurately</span> limited to a belt around the base of the growth, and
+ sometimes also to a cap at the summit.</p>
+
+ <p>Since morphological differentiations of different parts is but the
+ result of differences of evolution, <i>i.e.</i> of functional differences
+ of the various parts, we may consider that osmotic growths possess the
+ faculty of organization like living beings.</p>
+
+ <p>An osmotic growth may be wounded, and a wound delays its growth and
+ development like a disease or an accident in a living being. A wound in
+ an osmotic production may also become cicatrized and covered with a
+ membrane, when the growth will recommence exactly as in a living
+ being.</p>
+
+ <p>An osmotic growth is a transformer of energy. It increases in bulk,
+ pushing aside the mother liquor, and thus doing external work. An osmotic
+ growth has a temperature above its medium, since the chemical reaction of
+ which it is the seat is accompanied by the production of heat. We know
+ <!-- Page 154 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page154"></a>{154}</span>but little of the transformation of energy
+ which takes place in an osmotic production, but we may say with certainty
+ that it is capable of transforming both chemical energy and osmotic
+ energy into heat and mechanical motion.</p>
+
+ <p>An osmotic production is the arena of complicated chemical phenomena
+ which produce a veritable metabolism. It has long been known that
+ diffusion and osmosis may determine various chemical transformations. H.
+ St. Clair Deville has demonstrated that certain unstable salts are
+ partially decomposed by diffusion. Thus during the diffusion of alum, the
+ sulphate of potash is separated from the sulphate of aluminium.
+ Similarly, when the chloride or acetate of aluminium is caused to
+ diffuse, the acids become separated from the aluminia. This decomposition
+ is the result of the different resistance which the medium offers to the
+ diffusion of different ions. This difference of resistance may even cause
+ a difference of potential between two media, similar to the differences
+ of potential in living organisms. Frequently also a difference of
+ hydration in the chemical substances on either side of an osmotic
+ membrane will determine a chemical reaction, which like all other
+ chemical reactions is accompanied by a corresponding transformation of
+ energy. The study of these chemical metamorphoses and the transformations
+ of energy in osmotic growths has opened up a new subject for experimental
+ investigation in the field of organic chemistry.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Coagulation.</i>&mdash;There is a most remarkable analogy between
+ the phenomena of coagulation as seen in living beings and the phenomena
+ which occur when the liquid in the interior of an osmotic growth comes
+ into contact with the mother liquor. When the sap of a plant or the blood
+ of an animal escapes into the air or water of the surrounding medium, it
+ coagulates, <i>i.e.</i> it changes from a liquid to a gelatinous
+ consistency. In the same way, when the liquid in the interior of an
+ osmotic growth leaks out into the mother liquor it forms a gelatinous
+ precipitate. This gelatinous precipitation is a physico-chemical
+ phenomenon of the same nature as coagulation. It is by the study of
+ coagulation in liquids less complex than blood that we may hope to
+ elucidate the mechanism of the process, <!-- Page 155 --><span
+ class="pagenum"><a name="page155"></a>{155}</span>which is simply a
+ physico-chemical phenomenon exactly analogous to gelatinous
+ precipitation. Calcium phosphate is always prone to coagulate; it has
+ been called the gelatinous phosphate of lime, and we have already seen
+ how readily tribasic calcium phosphate takes the form of beautiful
+ transparent colloidal membranes which are gelatinous in texture.</p>
+
+ <p>We may obtain colloidal precipitates exactly analogous to coagulated
+ albumin by mixing a weak solution of chloride of calcium with potassium
+ carbonate or tribasic phosphate. Like albumin this precipitate forms
+ flakes, and is deposited slowly as a gelatinous colloidal mass. Like
+ albumin also this calcic solution is coagulated by heat; a solution of a
+ calcic salt of a volatile acid on heating forms a precipitate which has
+ all the appearance of albumin coagulated by heat.</p>
+
+ <p>Finally, Arthus and Pagès have shown that blood does not coagulate
+ when deprived of its calcium salts by the addition of alkaline oxalates,
+ fluorides, or citrates, and that the blood thus treated recovers its
+ coagulability on the addition of a soluble salt of calcium. The
+ coagulation of milk is also a calcium salt precipitation. Coagulation
+ therefore would seem to be merely the colloidal precipitation of a salt
+ of calcium.</p>
+
+ <p>Diffusion and osmosis are the elementary phenomena of life. All vital
+ phenomena result from the contact of two colloidal solutions, or of two
+ liquids separated by an osmotic membrane. Hence the study of the physics
+ of diffusion and osmosis is the very basis of synthetic biology.</p>
+
+ <p>A living being exhibits two sorts of movements, those which are the
+ result of stimulus from without, and those which are determined by an
+ excitation arising from within. In the higher animals the stimulus or
+ exciting energy coming from the entourage may be infinitely small when
+ compared with the amount of energy transformed. Moreover, the response to
+ an identical excitation may so vary as to give to these different
+ responses an appearance of spontaneity. There is in reality no
+ spontaneity, since the difference in response is governed by previous
+ external impressions which have left their record on the machinery. There
+ is in fact no such thing as a spontaneous action, since every action of a
+ living <!-- Page 156 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page156"></a>{156}</span>being has as its ultimate cause a stimulus
+ or excitation coming from without.</p>
+
+ <p>The movements of the second category are also conditioned by an
+ excitation, but the stimulus comes from within the organism. These
+ movements consist principally of changes of nutrition, or movements of
+ the circulation and respiration; they are rhythmic in character and are
+ probably produced by the same chemico-physical causes which determine
+ rhythmic movements outside the living body.</p>
+
+ <p>Just in the same way osmotic growths present two sorts of movements,
+ external movements and those which are connected with their nutrition. A
+ free osmotic growth swimming in the mother liquor will alter its position
+ and form under the influence of the slightest exterior excitation or
+ vibration. It responds to every variation of temperature, or to a slight
+ difference of concentration produced by adding a single drop of water,
+ and reacts to every exterior influence by displacement or
+ deformation.</p>
+
+ <p>An osmotic growth also shows indications of movements which are
+ connected with its nutrition, and these movements are rhythmic, like
+ those of respiration or circulation in a living organism. The growth of
+ an osmotic production shows itself not as a continuous process but
+ periodically. The water traverses the membrane, raises the pressure, and
+ distends the cell; at first the cell wall resists by reason of its
+ elasticity, it then suddenly relaxes, yielding to the osmotic pressure
+ and bulging out at a thinner spot on the surface; the internal pressure
+ falls suddenly, and there is a pause in the growth.</p>
+
+ <p>This rhythmic growth may be best observed by sowing in a solution of a
+ tribasic alkaline phosphate, pellets composed of powdered calcium
+ chloride moistened with glycerine, to which has been added 1 per cent. of
+ monobasic calcium phosphate. The experiment is so arranged as to bend or
+ incline the growing stems which shoot out from these grains. This may be
+ done by carefully pouring above the mother liquor a layer of water, or a
+ less concentrated solution. As the internal osmotic pressure rises, the
+ drooping extremity of the twig will become turgescent and gradually lift
+ itself <!-- Page 157 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page157"></a>{157}</span>up, and then suddenly fall again for
+ several millimetres. We have frequently watched this rhythmic movement
+ for an hour or more&mdash;a slow gradual elevation of the extremity of
+ the twig and a rapid fall recurring every four seconds or so.</p>
+
+ <p>It may be objected that the substance of an osmotic growth is
+ continually undergoing change, whereas a living organism transforms into
+ its own substance the extraneous matter which it borrows from its
+ environment. The distinction, however, is only an apparent one. The
+ substance of a living being is also continually undergoing chemical
+ change; it does not remain the same for a single instant. We see an
+ evidence of this change in the evolution of age; the substance of the
+ adult is not that of the infant. In some living organisms such as
+ insects, especially the ephemeridæ who have but a brief existence, this
+ change of substance is even more rapid than that in an osmotic
+ growth.</p>
+
+ <p>It has been objected that osmotic productions cannot be compared with
+ living organisms since they contain no albuminoid matter. This is to
+ consider life as a substance, and to confound the synthesis of life with
+ that of albumin. If albumin is ever produced by synthesis in the
+ laboratory it will probably be dead albumin. All living organisms contain
+ albumin; this is probably due to the fact that albuminoid matter is
+ particularly adapted for the formation of osmotic membranes. Our osmotic
+ productions are composed of the same elements as those which constitute
+ living beings; an osmotic growth obtained by sowing calcium nitrate in a
+ solution of potassium carbonate with sodium phosphate and sulphate
+ contains all the principal elements of a living organism, viz. carbon,
+ oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, sulphur, and phosphorus.</p>
+
+ <p>The whole of the vegetable world is produced by the osmotic growth of
+ mineral substances, if we except the small amount of organic matter
+ contained in the seeds.</p>
+
+ <p>The most important problem of synthetic biology is not so much the
+ synthesis of the albuminoids as the reduction of carbonic acid. In nature
+ this reduction is accomplished by the radiant energy of the sun, by the
+ agency of the catalytic action of chlorophyll. <!-- Page 158 --><span
+ class="pagenum"><a name="page158"></a>{158}</span></p>
+
+ <p>The physico-chemical study of osmotic growth is as yet hardly begun;
+ we have but indicated the method, the way is open, and the problems
+ awaiting solution are legion. Only work and ever more work and workers
+ are required. Experiments should be made with substances which are
+ chemically unstable like the albuminoids, substances which readily
+ combine and dissociate again, alternately absorbing and giving up the
+ potential energy which is the essence of life. Experiments should also be
+ made with substances which readily unite or decompose under the influence
+ of water, since hydration and hydrolysis appear to be the dominant
+ mechanism in all vital reaction, as they undoubtedly are in osmotic
+ growth, which consists of an increase of hydration on one side of an
+ osmotic membrane and a diminution on the other side.</p>
+
+ <p>Life is not a substance but a mechanical phenomenon; it is a dynamic
+ and kinetic transference of energy determined by physico-chemical
+ reactions; and the whole trend of modern research leads to the belief
+ that these reactions are of the same nature as those met with in the
+ organic world. It is the grouping of physical reactions and their mode of
+ association and succession, their harmony in fact, which constitutes
+ life. The problem we have to solve in the synthesis of life is the proper
+ attuning and harmonizing of these physical phenomena, as they exist in
+ living beings, and there should be no absolute impossibility in our some
+ day realizing this harmony in whole or in part.</p>
+
+ <p>Albert Gaudry says: "I cannot conceive why in determining the
+ connecting links of the animal world the fact that an organic body is
+ formed of such and such elements should be of greater importance than the
+ manner in which these elements are grouped. Descartes regarded extension
+ as the essential property of an organized being; he supposed it to be
+ inert of itself, and that it had the Deity for its motive force. To-day
+ the hypothesis of Descartes has given way to that of Leibnitz, who
+ regards force as the essential property of the living being, the visible
+ and tangible matter being only of secondary importance. If we regard the
+ living being as a force, this <span class="correction" title="Original reads 'orce'."
+ >force</span> is able to aggregate matter under such and such a form,
+ <!-- Page 159 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page159"></a>{159}</span>with such or such a structure, and such or
+ such a chemical essence. It does not seem that the classification
+ depending on differences of substance are any more important than those
+ which depend on differences of form."</p>
+
+ <p>The biological interest of osmotic productions is quite independent of
+ the chemical nature of the substances which enter into their growth. All
+ substances which produce osmotic membranes by the contact of their
+ solutions exhibit phenomena analogous to those of nutrition. Osmotic
+ morphogenesis is a physical phenomenon resulting from the contact of the
+ most diverse substances. It has given us our first glimpse of the manner
+ in which a living being may be supposed to have been formed according to
+ the ordinary physical laws of nature. We cannot at present produce
+ osmotic growths with all the combinations found in living beings, but
+ that is only because chemistry still lags far behind physics in the
+ synthesis of organic forms.</p>
+
+ <p>We are often told "not to force the analogy." But error is equally
+ produced by the exaggeration of unimportant differences. We have already
+ seen that nutrition, absorption, transformation, and excitation are not
+ the characteristics of living organisms alone; nor is reaction to
+ external impressions the appanage only of animate beings. To insist on
+ the resemblance between an osmotic production and a living being is not
+ to force an analogy but to demonstrate a fact.</p>
+
+ <p>Let us briefly recapitulate. An osmotic growth has an evolutionary
+ existence; it is nourished by osmosis and intussusception; it exercises a
+ selective choice on the substances offered to it; it changes the chemical
+ constitution of its nutriment before assimilating it. Like a living thing
+ it ejects into its environment the waste products of its function.
+ Moreover, it grows and develops structures like those of living
+ organisms, and it is sensitive to many exterior changes, which influence
+ its form and development. But these very phenomena&mdash;nutrition,
+ assimilation, sensibility, growth, and organization&mdash;are generally
+ asserted to be the sole characteristics of life.</p>
+
+ <p><br style="clear:both" /></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p><!-- Page 160 --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page160"></a>{160}</span></p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XIII</h3>
+
+<p class="cenhead">EVOLUTION AND SPONTANEOUS GENERATION</p>
+
+ <p>By many biologists, even at the present day, the origin and evolution
+ of living beings is considered to be outside the domain of natural
+ phenomena, and hence beyond the reach of experimental research. The
+ change in our views on this subject is due to a Frenchman, Jean Lamarck,
+ who was the true originator of the scientific doctrine of evolution. At a
+ time when the miraculous origin of every living being was regarded as an
+ unchangeable verity, and was defended like a sacred dogma, Lamarck boldly
+ formulated his theory of evolution, with all its attendent consequences,
+ from spontaneous generation to the genealogy of man.</p>
+
+ <p>In his <i>Philosophie Zoologique</i>, which appeared in 1809, Lamarck
+ put forth his claim to regard all the phenomena of life, of living
+ beings, and of man himself as pertaining to the domain of natural
+ phenomena. According to him, all bodies which are met with in nature,
+ organic and inorganic alike, are subject to the same laws. Life is a
+ physical phenomenon, and all the processes of life are due to mechanical
+ causes, either physical or chemical. He writes: "À leur source le
+ physique et le moral ne sont sans doute qu'une seule et même chose. Il
+ faut rechercher dans la considération de l'organisation les causes mêmes
+ de la vie."</p>
+
+ <p>In the intellectual evolution of the human mind perhaps no advance has
+ been more important than that of Lamarck&mdash;the conquest of the domain
+ of life by human intelligence. In conformity with the true scientific
+ method, he founds his doctrine on the facts and phenomena of nature. "I
+ confine myself," he says, "within the bounds of a simple contemplation
+ <!-- Page 161 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page161"></a>{161}</span>of nature." It was this observation of the
+ gradual perfecting of living organisms from the simplest to the most
+ complicated that inspired Lamarck with the idea of evolution and
+ transformation. "How," he says, "can we help searching for the cause of
+ such wonderful results? Are we not compelled to admit that nature has
+ produced successively bodies endowed with life, proceeding from the
+ simplest to the most complex?"</p>
+
+ <p>The various products of nature have been divided into classes, genera,
+ and species, simply to facilitate their study. Modern research tends to
+ show that there is no definite line of demarcation even between the
+ animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms. All our classification is
+ artificial, and the passage from one division to another is gradual and
+ insensible. Lamarck expresses this idea very clearly: "We must remember
+ that classes, orders, and families, and all such nomenclature, are
+ methods of our own invention. In nature there are no such things as
+ classes or orders or families, but only individuals. As we become better
+ acquainted with the productions of nature, and as the number of specimens
+ in our collections increases, we see the intervals between the classes
+ gradually fill up, and the lines of separation become effaced."</p>
+
+ <p>Lamarck also raises his voice against the supposed immutability of
+ species. "Species have only a relative constancy, depending on the
+ circumstances of the individuals. The individuals of a given species
+ perpetuate themselves without variation only so long as there is no
+ variation in the circumstances which influence their existence.
+ Numberless facts prove that when an individual of a given species changes
+ its locality, it is subjected to a number of influences which little by
+ little alter, not only the consistency and proportions of its parts, but
+ also its form, its faculty, and even its organization; so that in time
+ every part will participate in the mutations which it has undergone."</p>
+
+ <p>Lamarck also clearly affirms the fact of spontaneous generation. "I
+ hope to prove," he says, "that nature possesses means and faculties for
+ the production of all the forms which we so much admire. Rudimentary
+ animals and plants have <!-- Page 162 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page162"></a>{162}</span>been formed, and are still being formed
+ to-day, by spontaneous generation."</p>
+
+ <p>Lamarck himself gives a résumé of his doctrine in the following six
+ propositions:&mdash;</p>
+
+ <p>1. "All the organized bodies of our globe are veritable productions of
+ Nature, which she has successively formed during the lapse of ages.</p>
+
+ <p>2. "Nature began, and still recommences day by day, with the
+ production of the simplest organic forms. These so-called spontaneous
+ generations are her direct work, the first sketches as it were of
+ organization.</p>
+
+ <p>3. "The first sketches of an animal or a vegetable growth being begun
+ under favourable conditions, the faculties of commencing life and of
+ organic movement thus established have gradually developed little by
+ little the various parts and organs, which in process of time have become
+ diversified.</p>
+
+ <p>4. "The faculty of growth is inherent in every part of an organized
+ body; it is the primary effect of life. This faculty of growth has given
+ rise to the various modes of multiplication and regeneration of the
+ individual, and by its means any progress which may have been acquired in
+ the composition and forms of the organism has been preserved.</p>
+
+ <p>5. "All living things which exist at the present day have been
+ successively formed by this means, aided by a long lapse of time, by
+ favourable conditions, and by the changes on the surface of the
+ globe&mdash;in a word, by the power which new situations and new habits
+ have of modifying the organs of a body which is endowed with life.</p>
+
+ <p>6. "Since all living things have undergone more or less change in
+ their organization, the species which have been thus insensibly and
+ successively produced can have but a relative constancy, and can be of no
+ very great antiquity."</p>
+
+ <p>The admirable work of Lamarck was absolutely neglected in France,
+ where it was treated as unworthy even of consideration. This neglect
+ profoundly afflicted Lamarck, who gradually sank a victim to the
+ opposition of his contemporaries. He left, however, one disciple, Etienne
+ Jeoffroy St. <!-- Page 163 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page163"></a>{163}</span>Hilaire, but he too was soon reduced to
+ silence under the weight of authority of his adversaries.</p>
+
+ <div class="figright" style="width:46%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig62.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig62.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 62." title="Fig. 62." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 62.</span>&mdash;Osmotic vegetation.
+ </div>
+
+ <p>Before the doctrine of evolution could live and take its proper place,
+ it had to be reborn in England&mdash;the country of liberty. This
+ resuscitation was due to Darwin, who added to it his illuminating
+ doctrine of natural selection. But apart from this and a perfecting of
+ its various details, Lamarck had already formulated the doctrine of
+ evolution with perfect precision. Lamarck's work was still-born, whereas
+ that of Darwin lived and grew to its full development. This was due, not
+ to any imperfection or insufficiency in Lamarck's work, but <!-- Page 164
+ --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page164"></a>{164}</span>to the milieu
+ into which it was born. It was the environment that stifled the offspring
+ of Lamarck.</p>
+
+ <p>In 1868, Ernest Haeckel speaks of the genius of Lamarck in these
+ words: "The chief of the natural philosophers of France is Jean Lamarck,
+ who takes his place beside Goethe and Darwin in the history of evolution.
+ To him belongs the imperishable glory of being the first to formulate the
+ theory of descent, and of founding the philosophy of nature on the solid
+ basis of biology," and adds, "There is no country in Europe where
+ Darwin's doctrine has had so little influence as in France." Haeckel has
+ but done tardy justice in his discovery of and testimony to the genius of
+ Lamarck.</p>
+
+ <p>The spirit of opposition does not seem to have much changed in France
+ since Lamarck's time. In 1907 the Académie des Sciences de Paris excluded
+ from its <i>Comptes Rendus</i> the report of my researches on diffusion
+ and osmosis, because it raised the question of spontaneous
+ generation.</p>
+
+ <p>The majority of scientists seem to consider that the question of
+ spontaneous generation was definitely settled once for all when Pasteur's
+ experiments showed that a sterilized liquid, kept in a closed tube,
+ remained sterile.</p>
+
+ <p>Without the idea of spontaneous generation and a physical theory of
+ life, the doctrine of evolution is a mutilated hypothesis without unity
+ or cohesion. On this point Lamarck speaks most clearly: "Although it is
+ customary when one speaks of the members of the animal or vegetable
+ kingdom to call them products of nature, it appears that no definite
+ conception is attached to the expression. Our preconceived notions hinder
+ us from recognising the fact that Nature herself possesses all the
+ faculties and all the means of producing living beings in any variety.
+ She is able to vary, very slowly but without cessation, all the different
+ races and all the different forms of life, and to maintain the general
+ order which we see in all her works."</p>
+
+ <p>The doctrine of Lamarck is frequently misinterpreted. We often hear it
+ expressed as "Function makes the organ," or even "Function creates the
+ organ." This is equivalent to saying, "Life makes the living being,"
+ which is incomprehensible, <!-- Page 165 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page165"></a>{165}</span>making of function a sort of immaterial
+ and independent entity which constructs a material organ in order to
+ lodge within it. No such idea is to be found in all the works of Lamarck.
+ He formulates his law in the following terms: "In every animal which is
+ still undergoing development, the frequent and sustained use of any one
+ organ increases its size and power, whereas the constant neglect of the
+ use of such organ weakens and deteriorates it, so that it finally
+ disappears."</p>
+
+ <p>In his expression of this law Lamarck insists on the fact that
+ organization precedes function. He affirms only that function,
+ <i>i.e.</i> action and reaction, modifies the organ; or, in other words,
+ that organisms are modelled by the action of exterior forces acting upon
+ them. It is in this sense only that function may be said to make an
+ organ, but this mode of expression should be avoided, as it is apt to be
+ misunderstood.</p>
+
+ <p>Astronomy teaches us that our globe was detached from the sun in an
+ incandescent state, and geology asserts that this earth has passed
+ through a period of long ages when its temperature was incompatible with
+ the existence of life. It was only with the cooling of the earth crust
+ that it was possible for living beings to make their appearance. Hence
+ they must of necessity have been produced spontaneously from terrestrial
+ material under the influences of chemical and physical forces. This
+ opinion imposes itself on all who reflect and judge freely. In the same
+ way the doctrine of evolution necessitates as a corollary the doctrine of
+ spontaneous generation. The doctrine of evolution should reconstitute
+ every link in the chain of beings from the simplest to the most
+ complicated; it cannot afford to leave out the most important of all,
+ viz. the missing link between the inorganic and the organic kingdoms. If
+ there is a chain, it must be continuous in all its parts, there can be no
+ solution of continuity.</p>
+
+ <p>Evolutionists like Lamarck and Haeckel admit spontaneous generation,
+ not as the most probable, but as the only possible explanation of the
+ phenomenon of life.</p>
+
+ <p>Lamarck shows us the apparition of living things at a certain epoch of
+ the earth's evolution, and the gradual <!-- Page 166 --><span
+ class="pagenum"><a name="page166"></a>{166}</span>development of more
+ complicated forms as the conditions changed on the surface of the globe.
+ Darwin shows how heredity and natural selection tend to accentuate the
+ variations which are favourable to existence. Haeckel demonstrates the
+ parallelism between ontogenesis and philogenesis&mdash;between the
+ successive forms in the evolution of the embryo and the successive forms
+ of the individual in the evolution of a race. These are great and
+ admirable conquests of the human intelligence, they have demonstrated the
+ first appearance and the progressive evolution of living beings; it now
+ only remains for us to explain them.</p>
+
+ <div class="figright" style="width:46%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig63.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig63.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 63." title="Fig. 63." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 63.</span>&mdash;Marine forms of osmotic growth.
+ </div>
+
+ <p>The doctrine of evolution, while enforcing the fact of spontaneous
+ generation and progressive evolution, gives us no hint as to the physical
+ mechanism of such generation. It does not tell us by what forces, or
+ according to what laws, the simpler forms of life have been produced, or
+ in what manner differences of environment have acted in order to modify
+ them. The doctrine asserts the simultaneous variations in organic forms
+ and in the physical influences which produce them, but says <!-- Page 167
+ --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page167"></a>{167}</span>nothing as to
+ their mode of action. The Darwinian theory shows how acquired variations
+ are transmitted and accentuated by natural selection, but it says nothing
+ as to how these variations may be acquired. In the same way we are in
+ entire ignorance as to the physical mechanism of ontogenetic development,
+ the evolution of the embryo.</p>
+
+ <p>The morphogenic action of diffusion produces osmotic growths of
+ extreme variety. Most of these forms recall those of living
+ things&mdash;shells, fungi, corals, and algæ. The analogy of function is
+ quite as close as the resemblance of form. The study of osmosis, however,
+ is as yet in its infancy, and osmotic productions vary with the physical
+ conditions of chemical constitution, temperature, concentration, and the
+ like. The study of the organizing action of osmosis on organic material
+ has as yet been hardly attempted.</p>
+
+ <p>Osmosis produces growths of great complexity, much more complicated
+ indeed than the more simple forms of living organisms. This marvellous
+ complexity of an osmotic growth may be compared with another fact, the
+ ontogenetic development of the ovum, a single cell which under favourable
+ conditions of environment may evolve into a most complicated organism.
+ These considerations lead to the belief that the beginning of life has
+ not been the production of a simple primitive form from which all others
+ are descended, but that a number of such primitive forms may have been
+ produced, forms which by a rapid physical development attained a high
+ degree of complexity. Osmotic morphogenesis shows us that the ordinary
+ physical forces have in fact a power of organization infinitely greater
+ than has been hitherto supposed by the boldest imagination.</p>
+
+ <p>When we consider the ignorance in which we still remain as to the
+ phenomena which pass before our very eyes, how can we expect to
+ understand those which occurred in past ages, when the physical and
+ chemical conditions were so immensely different from those which obtain
+ in our own time? What do we know even now of the physical and chemical
+ phenomena which take place in the unfathomed depths of the ocean, where
+ for aught we know even at the present time the same <!-- Page 168
+ --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page168"></a>{168}</span>process may be
+ going on&mdash;the genesis of life, and the emergence of living beings
+ out of the inanimate mineral world? "Even now," says Albert Gaudry,
+ "polyps and oceanic animalculæ are building up vast coral reefs and
+ rocks. The oxygen and hydrogen which existed once was water, the oxygen
+ and nitrogen which once made air, the carbon, the phosphorus, the silica
+ and the lime which once were solid rock, now form the substance of living
+ beings. The silica is deposited in the skeleton of a sponge or a
+ radiolaria, the shell of a foraminifera or the carapace of a crustacean,
+ or unites with phosphorus to form the bones of a vertebrate. A very
+ tumult of life has succeeded to the primitive silence of inert matter.
+ Life has invaded the earth, and we see on all sides the inanimate mineral
+ kingdom being changed into a living world."</p>
+
+ <p>The admission that life may have appeared on the earth under the
+ influence of natural forces and according to physical laws and conditions
+ different from those of the present era throws a vivid light on the study
+ of biogenesis, spontaneous generation, and evolution. The means of
+ research are now indicated, and we have only to study the documents
+ already in our possession in order to know the conditions which obtained
+ when life first appeared on the globe. We must endeavour to reproduce
+ these conditions and to study their effects.</p>
+
+ <p>Since all living beings are formed of the same elements as those of
+ the mineral world, the term "organic" as applied to combinations can only
+ be used in order to emphasize the complexity of their constitution. It
+ was formerly believed that these organic combinations were the result of
+ life, and could not be reproduced except by living organisms. To-day many
+ of these organic substances are produced in the laboratory from inorganic
+ materials. In the past history of the globe it is easy to imagine
+ conditions which would facilitate the synthesis of organic substances
+ without the interposition of life. At the temperature of the electric
+ furnace, which was that of the earth at an early period of its evolution,
+ chemical combinations are possible quite other than those obtaining under
+ the present conditions of temperature and pressure. At the higher
+ temperature of the early <!-- Page 169 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page169"></a>{169}</span>geological era, silicides, carbides,
+ phosphides, and nitrides were formed in stable combinations instead of
+ the oxides, silicates, carbonates, phosphates, and nitrates of the
+ present time. These combinations existed on the earth at a time when the
+ conditions of temperature precluded the existence of water in a liquid
+ state. As the temperature cooled, and the water vapour became condensed,
+ it entered into chemical combination with the various rocks, producing
+ organic compounds like acetylene, which results from the action of water
+ on calcium carbide. H. Lénicque has developed a theory as to the
+ formation of various rocks under these conditions, which he communicated
+ in 1903 to the French Society of Civil Engineers.</p>
+
+ <p>The chemical evolution of the globe has undergone great changes as the
+ temperature gradually fell and the constitution of its crust altered. As
+ long as the temperature was higher than that at which water can exist,
+ all chemical reactions must have taken place between anhydric substances,
+ elements and salts in a state of fusion. These conditions are very
+ different from those of the present-day chemistry, which is the chemistry
+ of aqueous solutions. We may hope to be able to reproduce the earlier
+ conditions by the experimental study of anhydric substances in a state of
+ fusion.</p>
+
+ <p>At a later period, that of the primary and secondary rocks, there was
+ a uniform and constant temperature of about 40° C. The atmosphere was
+ charged with water vapour, and all the conditions were present for the
+ production of storms and tempests. The atmosphere during long ages must
+ have been the seat of formidable and incessant electric discharges; these
+ discharges are the most powerful of all physical agents of chemical
+ synthesis, and will cause nitrogen to combine directly to form various
+ compounds&mdash;nitrates, cyanides, and ammonia. Carbonic acid would also
+ be present in abundance and would enter into combination with these
+ nitrogenous compounds. In this way we may imagine that compounds were
+ formed which by some process of physical synthesis subsequently gave rise
+ to vast quantities of albuminoid matter. At that time the seas and oceans
+ contained all those substances which have <!-- Page 170 --><span
+ class="pagenum"><a name="page170"></a>{170}</span>since been fixed by the
+ metamorphism of the primitive rocks, or deposited in the sedimentary
+ strata. Most of the elements in our minerals were formerly in a state of
+ solution in these primeval seas, which contained carbonates, silicates,
+ and soluble phosphates in great abundance. As the crust gradually cooled,
+ the terrestrial atmosphere of necessity altered in composition, and the
+ slow evolution of the atmosphere no doubt also exercised an influence on
+ the development of living beings.</p>
+
+ <p>Palæontology teaches us that the earliest living organism appeared in
+ the sea. The most ancient of living things, those of the primary ages,
+ which were of greater duration than all other ages put together, were all
+ aquatic. We find moreover that every living organism consists of liquids,
+ solutions of crystalloids and colloids separated by osmotic membranes;
+ and it is significant that the ocean, that vast laboratory of life, is
+ also a solution of crystalloids and colloids. It is evident, then, that
+ we must look to the study of solutions if we would hope to discover the
+ nature and origin of life.</p>
+
+ <p>Life is an ensemble of functions and of energy-transformations, an
+ ensemble which is conditioned by the form, the structure, and the
+ composition of the living being. Life, therefore, may be said to be
+ conditioned by form, <i>i.e.</i> the external, internal, and molecular
+ forms of the living being.</p>
+
+ <p>All living things consist of closed cavities, which are limited by
+ osmotic membranes, and filled with solutions of crystalloids and
+ colloids. The study of synthetic biology is therefore the study of the
+ physical forces and conditions which can produce cavities surrounded by
+ osmotic membranes, which can associate and group such cavities, and
+ differentiate and specialize their functions. Such forces are precisely
+ those which produce osmotic growths, having the forms and exhibiting many
+ of the functions of living beings. Of all the theories as to the origin
+ of life, that which attributes it to osmosis and looks on the earliest
+ living beings as products of osmotic growths is the most probable and the
+ most satisfying to the reason.</p>
+
+ <div class="figright" style="width:47%;">
+ <a href="images/Fig64.jpg"><img style="width:100%" src="images/Fig64.jpg"
+ alt="Fig. 64." title="Fig. 64." /></a>
+ <span class="sc">Fig. 64.</span>&mdash;Osmotic shells and corals.
+ </div>
+
+ <p>We have already seen that the seas of the primary and <!-- Page 171
+ --><span class="pagenum"><a name="page171"></a>{171}</span>secondary ages
+ presented in a high degree the particular conditions favourable for the
+ production of osmotic growths. During these long ages an exuberant growth
+ of osmotic vegetation must have been produced in these primeval seas. All
+ the substances which were capable of producing osmotic membranes by
+ mutual contact sprang into growth,&mdash;the soluble salts of calcium,
+ carbonates, phosphates, silicates, albuminoid matter, became organized as
+ osmotic productions,&mdash;were born, developed, evolved, dissociated,
+ and died. Millions of ephemeral forms must have succeeded one another in
+ the natural evolution of that age, when the living world was represented
+ by matter thus organized by osmosis.</p>
+
+ <p>The experimental study of osmotic morphogeny adds its weight of
+ evidence in the same direction. When we see under our own eyes the cells
+ of calcium become organized, develop and grow in close imitation of the
+ forms of life, we cannot doubt that such a transformation has often
+ occurred in the past history of our planet, and the conviction becomes
+ irresistible <!-- Page 172 --><span class="pagenum"><a
+ name="page172"></a>{172}</span>that osmosis has played a predominant rôle
+ in the history of our earth and its inhabitants. It is a matter of
+ astonishment that the scientist has taken no notice of the active part
+ which osmosis has played in the evolution of our earth. On the effects of
+ this most important physical phenomenon science has hitherto remained
+ entirely mute.</p>
+
+ <p><i>Printed by</i> <span class="sc">Morrison &amp; Gibb Limited</span>,
+ <i>Edinburgh</i></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mechanism of Life, by Stéphane Leduc
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